


Aulë’s Gift

by daisynorbury



Series: Aulë’s Gift [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Exile (Hart Crane poem), M/M, Sweet and Low (Joseph Barnby song), Sweet and Low (part of Tennyson poem)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-03 03:12:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 54,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisynorbury/pseuds/daisynorbury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Our friendship endures these strange periods of inequality. You can't remember, and I can't forget."</p><p>A new chapter in Adina's classic <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/661700">Back to the Beginning</a> cycle, wherein Aulë granted Gimli perpetual reincarnation. Two thousand years into the Fourth Age, Legolas meets the ninth version of his dearest friend. Told mostly from Gimli's amnesiac POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Greatest Good Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> This extension of Tolkien's universe was created by [Adina](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina) in her five-story cycle that includes, in chronological order: [Chamber of Lovers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829271), [Kaleidoscope](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829538), [Undying](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829544), [Durin’s Child](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9827075), and [Back to the Beginning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9826688). My story (which takes place between Durin's Child and Back to the Beginning) relies heavily on details established in hers, and will make more sense if you read them first. (Plus, all the chapter titles within _Aulë’s Gift_ are phrases lifted from them.)
> 
> But if you want to jump right in without reading hers first (or have read them before but it's been a while), here's the super-condensed gist: _C of L:_ After falling in love during the War of the Ring, L &G go see The Glittering Caves and do some sexy consummatin'. _Kaleidoscope:_ They travel around Middle Earth visiting friends and family, including Thranduil and Gloin, to whom they announce they're now A Couple. Wedding ceremony at Erebor. _Undying:_ They're living in Tol Eressea and G's very old, near death. L freaks and asks Aulë to spare his life. Aulë sez "Nope, but I can give his soul in Mandos the choice to be re-born in Middle Earth in a new body." _D's C:_ L, back in Middle Earth, finds a later incarnation of G. They live in the Shire with G's adoptive hobbit parents. _B to the B:_ L finds a much, much later incarnation of G at Khazad-dum. They have an adventure.
> 
> Adina and I exchanged several e-mails in the past where I asked her for more details about how she envisioned 4th-Age Middle Earth and L&G and their many lives together, and she and I were in contact about it as recently as last summer, but I've lost track of her since then. I wanted to get her stamp of approval on all this before I published it, but I haven't heard from her in some time, and since the thing is finally finished, I wanted to get it out in the world. Adina, if you're there, I apologize for anything that doesn't gel, and hope I've done justice to your vision.
> 
> It started with a simple idea. I just wanted to write what happened to a new incarnation of Gimli from the moment he met Legolas to the moment he remembered who he was. "Simple," I thought.
> 
> HA HA HA HA HA no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. In this first chapter, Freor is 16 (about 9 in modern human reckoning), Hildis is 27 (about 14), and Sindri’s 5 (about 3). (My dwarves-to-men age comparison table is based on details from the [History of Middle-earth](https://www.amazon.com/History-Middle-Earth-Boxed-Set/dp/B00CS6XOK2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1471039177&sr=8-2&keywords=history+of+middle+earth+volumes+1-12). It's [here](https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkGCJevfLkuLbFhVOGA6q4Dz0Sw).)
> 
> 2a. _Leif_ rhymes with _safe_ , not _reef_. However, _Heid_ rhymes with _side_ instead of _trade_. _Freor_ is pronounced _fray-or_ , but the second syllable is very short and it often gets shortened to _frayr_. 2b. I just picked personal names that I liked and didn’t worry about being faithful to Tolkien or Adina or Nordic naming conventions or anything at all.

4th Age (F.A.) 2038, May. Dale.

It was Saturday, and Fror Fholsson had promised to take his children to the Spring Festival in Dale while their mother was at work for the day. Hildis and Freor were old enough to entertain themselves, which was convenient when Fror had to deal with their sister’s toddler outbursts. It was a perfect day, blue and soft and fragrant, and the fairgrounds were packed with people and animals and laughter and enticing smells. Sindri wanted to pet the bunnies, and Hildis and Freor kept going on about the caber-toss, so Fror instructed the elder two to keep an eye on one another and meet him back at the cider stand in forty-five minutes.  
  
Fifty minutes later Fror was wiping juice off his younger daughter’s furry chin when Hildis emerged from the crowd and skipped up and gave her little sister a kiss on her cheek. Sindri giggled. Hildis looked around. “Where’s Freor?”  
“Wasn’t he with you?”  
“He got bored and said he was going back to the petting zoo. Didn’t he find you?”  
“No, I haven’t seen him. How long ago?”  
“Ten minutes?”  
“He probably got distracted. He knows we’re meeting here. He’ll come.”

When he didn’t after another five minutes Fror asked Hildis to wait by the cider stand (in case Freor appeared) while he took Sindri off to look for him. Fror’s son was clever and not usually disobedient; it was unlike him to wander off for long periods. But he wasn’t with the rabbits, nor had he gone back to the bleachers by the caber green. Fror, with Sindri on his hip, had started back for the cider stand when he spotted his boy on a bench on the far side of the green, sitting beside a Daleman and playing a tin whistle. “Freor,” he called. Freor didn’t hear him. He sighed and headed across the green.  
  
“Son, do you know what time it is?” Freor was engrossed in the instrument and hadn’t seen him approach. When he heard the familiar voice he looked up, startled.  
“Oh. Hi Dad.”  
Fror cocked an eyebrow at him. “And when were you planning on meeting your family at the cider stand?”  
“Am I late?”  
“Yes. Don't do that. I was getting nervous.”  
Fror looked up at the Daleman. (Probably not a Daleman, actually. He looked foreign. His face was an odd shape, he wore his hair unusually long, and his shirt was… well. A bit loud for local tastes.) “Who’s your friend?”  
“Leif. He’s teaching me tin whistle. Leif, this is my dad and sister. Where’s Hildis?”  
“She’s waiting at the cider stand in case you went back there. Do you still want to see the horse jumping? The last show’s in fifteen minutes. We should go get seats.”  
“Yeah! Can Leif come?”  
“That’s up to him.”  
Freor turned and addressed his new friend. “You want to come see the horses with us?”  
The man smiled. “Sure.”  
Freor handed the whistle back to him. The man stood, took it, and stashed it in a narrow pouch on his belt. Fror stuck out his free hand and the man shook it. He was tall, even for a man. “Fror Fholsson, at your service.”  
“Leif Green, at yours and your family’s.”

* * *

“I must admit I’m a little surprised that people named ‘Green’ would call their son ‘Leif’.”  
“Oh, I was the lucky one. They named our horses ‘Kelly’ and ‘Forest’.”  
Fror laughed. “You in town for the fair?”  
“Yes. I’ve only been here a couple days but I like it so much I plan to stay.”  
“Oh? Where you from?”  
“The Greenwood originally; recently the Iron Hills.”  
“Not a lot of mannish towns out there.”  
“No, it’s pretty quiet.”  
“Well welcome to Dale and all that, though it’s not really my place to welcome you here.”  
Freor had been watching the horse-jumping intently- but apparently also listening to his father’s conversation- because at that moment he chimed in with, “We live in The Kingdom. Most of the time we stay there but Dad said I could see the horses today. Can I see your whistle again?”  
Fror chuckled at his son’s statement of the obvious. He was often amused to discover the things that his children didn’t realize adults took for granted. In this case: dwarves live in The Kingdom and men live in Dale and there are very few exceptions.  
  
Leif took the whistle out again and handed it to the boy. He also pulled a small metal case from his breast pocket, flipped through the cards inside it, and then chose one and handed it to Fror. “I’m a music teacher by trade. Look me up if any of yours want lessons. Or you, for that matter.”  
  
Fror read the card - _Leif Green; instrument repair and music education; strings, woodwinds, voice_ \- then stashed it in his pocket. Nice as the idea was, private music lessons were something he didn’t expect to be able to give his children until he or Heid got promoted. “Thanks. I will.” Freor fiddled with the whistle throughout the show, but never blew any audible notes. Fror supposed he didn’t want to startle the horses.  
  
By the time the show ended Sindri was getting fussy and Fror told the others that he’d like to run her around on the jungle gym for awhile. Leif said, “Well. I'm very glad to have met all of you. And thanks, this has been fun. But I have an appointment in half an hour and should be going.” Freor returned the man’s tin whistle, and they all shook his hand and said goodbye, and he left.

* * *

That night when he was undressing Fror found Leif Green’s card in his pocket and glanced at it again. There was no address, nor contact information other than the name. He stuck it into the mirror frame on the bedroom dresser where it joined the general chaos, and forgot about it. On his way back from the bathroom in his pajamas Fror heard Freor call him from inside his darkened bedroom. “Dad?”  
“Yes?”  
“What was that song you used to sing to me when I was little?”  
Fror stepped inside and went to sit on his son’s bed. “Here comes the sandman?”  
“No, the other one. When I couldn’t sleep. Wind on the western sea?”  
“Oh, _Sweet and Low_.”  
“Yeah. Leif played it today.”  
“No kidding? Small world.”  
“Where’s it from?”  
“I’m afraid I don’t know. My grandad used to sing it to me when I was little, and he told me his mother sang it to him. I suppose it’s an old song, but I don’t know where it came from.”  
“Can I have a tin whistle?”  
“Maybe. Ask your mother.”  
“My birthday’s coming up. Can I have one then?”  
Fror chuckled to himself. Freor’s birthday wasn’t for another three months. “We’ll see.”


	2. Sooner Begun, Sooner Done

F.A. 2051, March. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

Hildis Heidsdottir had come of age. Her mother Heid and father Fror had taken her to Durin’s Anvil and reminded her of her name. The experience was surprisingly powerful. She’d expected it would make her feel like an adult, which it did, but it also made her feel that much more a child, since now she felt not just her parents’ love, but Mahal’s too. It also made her feel protective of her younger siblings. She was scheduled to start her service term in the mines in a week, and she had so much to do before then that she didn’t think she’d have enough time to do what she really wanted, which was hang with her brother and sister. When Sindri came home from school on Wednesday afternoon Hildis said, “Hey Sindri, you know about Longseeker?”  
“What?”  
“Longseeker, the elf."  
“Oh, yeah. Dad told me that story when I was little.”  
“Wait- you used to be even littler?!”  
“Mom! Hild's teasing me!”  
Heid called from the open door of her workshop, “Oh yeah? I bet you can go her one better.”  
Hildis said, waving her fingers mock-ominously, “ _There is one elf still who haunts dwarvish lands…_ ”  
“Hildis, shut up. Everybody knows that’s just a fairy tale. Longseeker’s like the tooth fairy.”  
She continued: “ _He lived here Under the Mountain in the time of King Barin, and now wanders Middle-earth from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills, always seeking._ ”  
Sindri sighed in exaggerated exasperation. “Fine. _Seeking what_?”  
“ _YOU!_ “ And Hildis jumped at her middle and tickled her mercilessly. Sindri squirmed away and swatted her on the arm.  
“Dammit, Hildis!”  
She laughed and said, “No, you’re right. I’m just kidding.” She smirked. “Actually _No one knows. Perhaps if you live to be as old as grandfather you’ll see him someday._ I’ll help you with your homework if you want.”  
Sindri sulked for a second and then relented. “Okay. Classics today. I’m so bad at Khuzdul.”  
“Aw. Nothin’ to it.” Hildis followed her happily into the study.  
  
“Is Grimsdottir still teaching?”  
Sindri giggled. “Yeah.”  
“What?”  
“Nothing.” She plopped down on her desk chair and pointed at the book. “THIS doesn’t make sense. Words can’t have genders- they’re not even things, they’re concepts.”  
“I know. It’s just how it is. Once I gave up trying to understand it and just memorized them I was a lot happier. Like the times tables. Is she still doing the complicated braids?”  
Sindri turned slightly pink. “Um. Yeah.”  
Hildis grinned at her. “I liked those too.”  
Sindri punched her shoulder. “Mom, she’s doing it again!”  
“Hildis, be nice to your sister,” wafted in from across the hall.  
She gave Sindri a look of affected innocence. “What? What did I say? Everybody likes Grimsdottir’s braids.”  
Sindri rolled her eyes. “And she keeps saying the verb goes at the end and then giving us sentences where it doesn’t.”  
“That’s because the thought hasn’t been completed at the end of that particular sentence. You have to take the context of the whole paragraph. You know, like life: you can end one sentence on “nice braids” IF the verb that ties together all the others- like a nice smile and voice and laugh- comes at the end.” She grinned at Sindri even wider.  
Sindri glared back. “Never mind. I’ll go ask Freor.”


	3. Flawed Creation

F.A. 2060, June 9th. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

Heid Holdesdottir sat at her kitchen table staring into space. Long tear-tracks streaked her cheeks and beard. She was numb and raging, screaming and utterly silent. She had no idea what was happening. She was destroyed. It was… it was… 

When Freor came home he found her there and knew immediately that something was desperately wrong. She blinked up at her beloved son.  
“Mom? What’s the matter?” He dropped his pack and came over and knelt before her. For a long time all she could do was stroke his hair as he watched her face. “What is it?”  
She whispered, “Your father.”  
He swallowed. “What?”  
“At work. A girder…”  
“What?” The tears were already starting and his voice was thin and reedy. “Is he gonna be okay?”  
She cleared her throat and tried to speak, but the words caught. She shook her head and breathed. “He’s gone.”  
Freor said, “What?” His eyes were saucers as he stared at her. “What?”  
She started sobbing again.  
Freor said “What?” three or four more times in shocked disbelief. 

When Sindri came home they went through it all again.

* * *

Five days later Heid gathered in the kingdom tombs with her son and daughter, her mother and father, Fror's brother, her close friends and Fror’s, and a cloud of Fror’s colleagues and well-wishers. She had sent word to Hildis by special messenger, but she was stationed in a mine at the western end of the Grey Mountains and could not, they knew, be home in time for the funeral even if she set out the moment she received it.  
After the ceremony Heid and her family stood in a line at the edge of the family plot and a stream of people- some of whom she knew and loved and a few she’d never met- passed by offering hugs and kind words, sorrow and support, meals and housecleaning and the practical stuff of everyday love. There were a few men among the dozens of dwarves. Heid had only a small number of human acquaintances, but she knew that Fror had worked with several so it was no surprise to see some today. Indeed, she would not have remarked upon their presence had she not noticed at one point that Freor stepped away from the line of mourners to speak with one. The next day she remembered it and asked, “Who was that man you were talking with yesterday? With the hair?”  
Freor looked up from the letter he was writing. “Oh. Yeah. That was odd. His name is Leif Green. He’s a music teacher.”  
“Oh- the mystery flowers.”  
“What flowers?”  
“One of the bouquets had a card on it that just said ‘Deepest sympathy -Leif’. Couldn’t think who that was. How did he know Fror?”  
“He didn’t. I mean… You remember the time Dad took us to the spring fair in Dale when I was little? The time we saw the horse-jumping and I met the tinwhistler?”  
“And you kept pestering us about it until we bought you a whistle for your birthday?”  
“Yeah. That was him. He only met Dad that one time. He said he read the funeral announcement in the paper and wanted to pay his respects.”  
“How kind.”  
“Yeah.” Freor looked thoughtful. “Weird, though. Hell of a memory.”  
“Well. Your father impressed everyone he met.”  
Freor breathed deep and smiled at her, wide and sad. “He sure did.” 

* * *

After her husband’s sudden accidental death, Heid became anxious that her younger children’s true names could be lost before they were reminded of them when they came of age. Two days after the funeral she mentioned her concerns to them for the first time. By the time Hildis arrived home at the end of the month Heid had become obsessed with idea of entrusting Freor and Sindri's names to a surrogate, and asked them to please choose someone with whom she might share them. Freor said, “Mom, will you stop it? Sindri maybe, but it’s only another year for me. You’ll be fine.”  
“Your father was fine. Then he was gone. Blink of an eye. It could just as easily happen to me. Your name would be lost. It’s unthinkable. Please."  
  
The next day Freor told her that while he was a little uncomfortable with the idea, he understood how much it meant to her, and knew in his heart that his choice was obvious. There was only one other eligible person in the world that he trusted completely. So the next day, Heid and Hildis visited Durin’s Anvil together, and Heid entrusted Freor’s name to his dearest friend, only lately come home: his elder sister. Sindri chose their grandfather, and Hoenir was to her as good and dear a second father as anyone might hope for.


	4. More Wiles Than One

F.A. 2060, June 13th. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

Freor Frorsson had been a bit conservative with detail when his mother asked him about Leif Green's presence at her husband’s funeral. Their conversation had been very strange and he hadn’t wanted to bother her with it. The truth was that Freor had recognized Green instantly despite the intervening twenty-two years, and with a surprising and irrational wave of affection. They had barely said hello before Green pulled a small tin whistle from inside his suit jacket and held it out. Freor took it and played the first eight bars of a hornpipe before handing it back.  
“Where did you learn?”  
“School. I gave it up after a couple years.”  
“You remember, though.”  
“Not much.”  
“It’s not too late to try again.”  
“I suppose. You teach people my age? Not just kids?”  
Green smiled. “Yes.”  
Freor chewed his lip. “Maybe. I’ll think about it. How did you know…?”  
“Newspaper.”  
“Oh. Of course. Thanks for coming. I take it you saw Dad again after that day at the fair?”  
“Not really. I saw him around town sometimes. I’m so sorry, Freor. I know it’s absurd coming from a stranger but if there’s anything I can do...”  
Green stopped, seemingly at a loss for words. He looked extraordinarily sad- far sadder than Freor would have expected from someone who met his father once. So much so that he found himself reaching out to hug him. It didn’t make sense, but funerals are like that. Freor had never been so close to a man before, and was surprised by his smell. Whenever he went to Dale- which wasn’t often- his general olfactory impression was of a faint but pleasant tang, like buttermilk or cider vinegar. Green’s scent was subtle, clean, and put him in mind of warm bread. The man stroked his back gently with one hand, and when they separated his eyes were wet.  
Freor exhaled. “Um… Okay. I should go be with my mother.”  
Green nodded. He and Freor regarded one another silently for a moment, and without saying goodbye Freor turned and re-joined his family. 

At home that night he found Green’s business card in the breast pocket of his suit and couldn’t think how it got there. _Leif Green; instrument repair and music education; strings, woodwinds, voice, piano; 44 Pine Rd N, Dale 8255._ He dropped it on his bedroom dresser where it joined the general chaos, and forgot about it.  
  
For the time being.


	5. A Diamond to Shape

F.A. 2060, August. Dale. (The month of Freor’s 39th birthday.)

When Leif Green returned home from town he checked his postbox as usual. There was a letter from Freor. He resisted the urge to open it until he’d walked the twenty feet from the curb to his front steps, crossed the porch, and closed the door behind him. 

_Dear Mr. Green,  
If you were, in fact, offering tin whistle lessons, I would be pleased to attempt them. Perhaps we could meet to establish a schedule and discuss your rates? I am available for instruction in the evenings (except Wednesdays and Fridays), or anytime on Monday. You are welcome to come here, and I would be happy to go to Dale if you’d prefer that. I hope I may prove a diligent and rewarding student, despite my age._

_Yours sincerely,_  
 _Freor Frorsson_  
 _18 Granite St W_  
 _tKutM 7042_

Leif’s shield had relaxed all on its own in the ten seconds it had taken him to read the note. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply several times, and found himself laughing happily. When he finished laughing he read it again, grinning, then held the paper to his forehead for a moment before stepping over to his desk to reply.

_Dear Mr. Frorsson,  
I was. If it is agreeable to you, I will come to your home at six-thirty in the evening on Tuesday the 29th and we will begin. I look forward to seeing you again. And I suspect you were joking, but your age is not now nor ever will be an obstacle._

_Yours,  
Leif Green_


	6. We Two Shall Deal Well Together

F.A. 2061, April 19th. Dale. 

Freor’s first impression of his music teacher’s home was of an abundance of flowers and shrubs and trees that bordered on… Hm. He supposed ‘gaudy’ was unfair. ‘Exuberant’, rather. He climbed the eight steps up to Leif’s wide porch, where baskets of spider lilies hung in the cool sunshine and the top of a lilac tree spilled blossoms over the rail. A porch swing hung on his left. The iron doorknocker was worked into the shape of a grape-laden vine, and when Freor leaned in for a closer look he noticed a tiny iron bee perched on a grapeleaf. He knocked, and in a few moments Leif opened the door and invited him into his cheerful front room. Freor had been studying tin whistle (and later clarinet) with Leif for eight months already, but this was his first piano lesson. Leif couldn’t very well bring his piano to The Kingdom, and Freor said he’d be quite happy to go to Dale for the privilege. Freor had Mondays off and had agreed to visit Leif’s house at midday. The piano was built for a man, but Leif mostly taught children so the bench had a step on one side so a smaller person could climb up in comfort, and the pedals were fitted with a set of extenders.  
  
During the lesson itself Leif remained entirely ordinary, but after their forty minutes were up, Freor produced his tin whistle from a pocket and said, “Could we try that Broadbeam duet again?” Leif grinned, saying, “Sure”, and rifled through the stack of sheet music atop the piano until he found the right one. But then, instead of reaching for his clarinet, he pulled a viola and bow from a brown case behind the armchair in the corner. Freor said, “Is there anything you don’t play?”  
Leif shrugged. “Lots of things.”  
“Like what?”  
“Alpenhorn.”  
Freor snorted.  
“Accordion.” Leif raised the viola to his chin and held up the bow. “Ready?”  
Freor began immediately and Leif followed two notes behind. Freor pretended to concentrate on the notes as written, but it was an act. He had memorized the piece in the five days since he’d last seen Leif (and played it over dozens of times), and today let his fingers take over so that he could pay attention to his peripheral vision. He didn’t have to wait long. Eight bars into it Leif’s eyes fell shut, and it was clear the tune was second nature to him. Ten bars after that his appearance began to change, and Freor, without missing a beat, turned to watch. 

* * *

 

When Leif had first come to 18 Granite Street the previous August there had been nothing suspicious about him. Freor had re-learned the tin whistle (though better this time), and one day Leif asked if maybe he was interested in trying the clarinet, too? Freor had agreed. The lessons themselves only lasted forty minutes, but Leif’s visits stretched longer as every week Freor discovered he had more extracurricular things to talk with him about. In two months they were fast friends. Freor thought he hadn’t enjoyed anyone’s company so much since Hildis had moved away, and while he didn’t miss his father any less, somehow his time with Leif made it easier to bear. Freor even invited Leif to join his family for the Durin's Day feast in October. Fror's absence was palpable, but Heid seemed to take some surprised comfort in the fact that her son's new friend was not only willing to sing the traditional hymns with them, but already knew the words. (Green said his interest in music encompassed all the northern traditions.) And he learned the games with very little instruction.  
  
It wasn’t until they started playing whistle-and-clarinet duets in February that Freor had noticed anything peculiar. Sometimes when they played together- a piece that Leif knew well and didn’t need the music for- Leif would close his eyes and play from memory. That in itself wasn’t strange, it was just that when it happened, he looked… different. Somehow. Weird. And Freor couldn’t figure out quite what the difference was. It wasn’t that his features changed, that was impossible. He just looked… less prosaic? The word that came to mind was “brighter” but that didn’t make sense. He also seemed taller, but was sitting in a chair so Freor figured he must just have shifted his posture. Freor forgot about it at first, thinking it a trick of mind or the light, but when it happened again he remembered, and paid more attention. Yes, definitely: taller, brighter, kind of foreign, and handsome. Freor was surprised at the thought. He’d never given Leif’s looks so much as a second glance before. Men were just men, after all. Freor didn’t know many, and in his limited experience, while they were generally a good and skilled people, they never provoked the kind of aesthetic reaction he might have to another dwarf, or a fine piece of craft. When they reached the end of the piece and Leif opened his eyes the change disappeared, and he went back to being plain-old-Leif again. Freor didn’t mention it since he couldn’t think of a way to ask “Why do you look different when we play?” that didn’t strike him as awkward or even rude. The change didn’t happen every time, but he definitely noticed when it did. At those times Leif appeared so serene that it was relaxing just to look at him, and that always seemed to make something in Freor’s mind slide sideways a bit. He didn’t understand, but he liked it.

So it was with a twinge of guilt that Freor admitted to himself that he’d suggested they play a duet today with the express purpose of seeing his friend change into his ‘other face’, but the guilt wasn’t enough to stop him. He was fascinated by the change, and by the fact that Leif was either unaware or didn’t think it odd. And here, in Leif's own bright parlor with sunshine streaming in the big picture-window, the effect was more pronounced. As Freor watched, his teacher became taller without growing, his features sharpened without changing shape, and his skin paled without changing color. For a moment, Freor had the odd sensation that his peripheral vision had disappeared, and he thought that this face of Leif’s seemed familiar, but not from having seen it a week or a month ago. More like from years ago. Childhood. Like he’d once had a picture book where that face was one of the illustrations, or maybe that’s how Leif had looked on the day they met. And the beauty he'd noticed before was… strange. Leif wasn't handsome in the classical-bronze-bust-of-Durin way, or even in the mannish-marble-statue-of-Erik way. He put Freor more in mind of… hm. A vein of native silver? Maybe elvish filigree in the Royal Museum. 

What?

Leif’s eyes opened as Freor watched, but this time the effect remained. The whatever-it-was in his mind slipped sideways again, but farther this time: into place. And all the space around him seemed to fill with depth, as if reality had suddenly become more real, more solid.  
Better.  
An elf. 

It was a preposterous thing to think. Sure, the world was big and he’d never been south of Long Lake, but still. He’d had ancient history in school like everyone else so he knew a little about elves, and established opinion was that while they could never be officially declared extinct in Middle-earth, the possibility of meeting one was so remote that they might as well be.  
  
Leif lifted bow from strings, letting the viola drop a little, and his normal face returned. “Freor?”  
He knew he was staring but couldn’t help himself. “Hm?”  
“You all right?”  
“What?”  
“You stopped.”  
“Oh.” He hadn’t noticed. “Sorry. No, I’m fine. Can we go back to-“ He looked down at the music. “Seventy-eight?”  
Leif scanned the page and found the requested measure. “Sure.”  
  
They played through to the end. Freor kept his eyes on the music, and Leif didn’t change. Things were back to normal, but Freor felt shaken by his outlandish idea. Now that he’d had it he couldn’t just forget it, but he also couldn’t possibly ask. It was nonsense. Ridiculous. Instead he said, “It’s amazing how the music changes you.”  
Leif shook his head slightly, not understanding. “Changes me?”  
“Mm. You look different.”  
“Oh? How so?”  
“I don’t know, just… I mean, do you feel different? When you play?”  
“Feel different? Why, what do I look like?”  
“Younger.”  
“Really?”  
“Well, actually maybe older.” Leif cocked his head, waiting for Freor to continue. “Like… healthy. Like you’ve been out for a walk in the snow and just came back in for tea.”  
Leif laughed merrily. “Why thank you. What a nice thing to say.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel and then stood. “I’m sorry I have to shoo you out but I have another student coming soon and I need to do some prep before then. You sure you don’t mind coming all this way?”  
Freor stood too, and shook Leif’s outstretched hand. “’Course not. You came all the way to the Kingdom all that time. And in the winter. Same time next week?”  
Leif smiled, looking every inch the quiet, normal man he was. “Sounds good. See you then.”


	7. The Custom of the Elves

F.A. 2061, April 19th. (Five minutes later.) Dale.

“Shortly” was an exaggeration. His next student wasn’t due for another hour. He’d planned to invite Freor to stay to lunch, but the dwarf’s innocent observation had shaken him and he needed some time to think. Of course there was no way for the lad to know this, but to one with the eyes to see it, a healthy Leif both younger and older and fresh from the snow bears a decided resemblance to an elf. He’d thought his shield intact and polished, and was disconcerted to learn that it had slipped without his notice. Not that he was much surprised. Out of necessity he’d hidden much from Gimli over the centuries, but he didn’t like to, and had never considered himself good at it.

The trouble with the shield that Legolas had so carefully constructed and maintained was that it cut both ways. The psycho-physical trick which removed the visual evidence of his elfness prevented him, in turn, from seeing the full spectrum of emotional detail in those around him. Of course he was aware of it, but it had never caused him to miss something important enough that he re-evaluated the need for his disguise. It had been obvious for a long time that presenting as an elf in the modern world- a world where where so much lore and knowledge and light had been lost- would have made his (and more to the point, Gimli’s) life uncomfortable, even difficult, and the decision to sacrifice some of his emotional acuity for the sake of anonymity was an easy one. And he’d thought he’d perfected the technique until that day at the Dale Spring Fair when he noticed a very young, very new little Gimli watching him from across the green, and he felt the shield slip. He did not beckon to the boy, but Freor started toward him anyway, and in the time it took the lad to reach him, Legolas had managed to clamp his shield down tight as a drum-head. And apart from the times when he was certain he was entirely alone, he’d kept it there ever since. He’d been doing it so long that it had become habit and more than habit. It was as automatic as breathing and just as easy to forget. And until today no one- not neighbor, friend, student or stranger, man or dwarf- had ever remarked upon his appearance at all. Not even his hair drew comment, despite its rare texture and the fact that he wore it unusually long in order to cover his ears. (He kept a knit hat in his pocket for windy days). Throughout Freor’s childhood Legolas had dressed as the Dalemen did, spoken with their particular accent (which had changed some since he’d lived there last), and involved himself in their community life. He’d made friends, found a devoted group of music students, and always used the Westron pun on his Sindarin name that Gimli had suggested long ago. He even had a regular Thursday-night gig at the Mason’s Arms with the trad band that he and some friends had put together. Some of his first students (the human ones) were grown now, and though their parents were too polite to mention it, they were privately a little mystified by the fact that Mr. Green didn’t seem to age. They told themselves that he must have been younger than they realized when they’d first met him.

It was true that Legolas had seen little of Freor’s father after that day at the fair. After what happened when Nain began to Remember he’d made the decision not to be a part of Gimli’s childhoods- at least when he thought it safe to do so- so since he’d found the boy in capable and loving hands, he’d been content to keep his distance from the Frorsson-Heidsdottir family. And while nothing could have stopped him from casting a protective eye over his friend from afar, he was careful. Freor never knew he was watched.

And then, when Freor was on the doorstep of adulthood, his father had died very suddenly. Legolas had watched Freor’s grief (and the courage with which he bore it, and the tender care he took of his mother and Sindri (Hildis was away at the mine)) with a pride no less fierce than his pain. He’d been surprised that Freor would choose to begin music lessons at such a difficult and transitional time in his life, but also knew that any suspicions he might have about the lad’s motives were just wishful thinking. He didn’t dwell on it, and indeed hadn’t thought his attitude toward duets with Freor any different from any of their other associations, but there it now quite clearly was. It had begun, and he needed a little time to digest the news that Freor had seen him for what he was, though apparently hadn’t yet guessed the truth. Short of asking Freor some suspiciously direct questions, there was no way for Legolas to know how much he had seen, or how often, or what he thought about it. He supposed it was for the best. If Freor thought it was just the music changing him, then in those situations he could relax and let it happen. Just be himself, or at least a closer version. He would not out himself without a very good reason, but he also wouldn’t lie if asked directly.


	8. Seldom Without Embellishment

F.A. 2061, June 2nd. Dale. 

It was June, and northeast Rhovanion resplendent in the jewel-green of early summer. Freor had graduated secondary school, and in a week he and his family would make their official, ceremonial yearbreak visit to Fror's grave. In August Freor would come of age and learn his name. Once he was both graduated and legal, he'd begin his first (and possibly only) vocational training. He'd chosen culinary school, and was scheduled to begin in September. Until then he was bussing tables and washing dishes at his local on weekday evenings, but other than that was free as a cloud. He spent much of his time larking about with his school friends- especially those who were going away to the mines or schools abroad or just journeying- but on this particular beautiful Saturday morning he was at Leif's house helping him paint the kitchen yellow. Leif had mentioned his plan in May and rejoined Freor's offer of help with, "Won't you be off hunting or something?" To which Freor had replied "Not 'til July. Sindri made me promise I wouldn't go until she was back from camp and could come along. She's a better shot than I am. Knows it, too." So today it was paint, and they were glad of the dry weather. After much sanding and the first coat they quit for lunch. Afterward Freor excused himself to the bathroom. Leif was just putting on his gloves again when Freor returned with a book. “Can you read this?” Freor held the tattered volume out to him.

Legolas pulled the gloves off again and took the book, mouth dropping open in shock. He stared at the cover, tracing fingers gently over it. He swallowed. “Where did you find this?”  
“The bookshelf in the hall.”  
He blinked. “Where?”  
“Um… second shelf from the top. Can you read it?”  
He nodded. He couldn’t believe it. He thought he’d lost it somewhere along the long, long way. He’d searched that shelf (and everything else in the house) countless times in vain. He’d been convinced it was gone, given by fate back to the wide world.  
“Did you have to learn the tengwar in music school?”  
“No. I spent some time in Gondor when I was younger. “  
“Oh. So what does it say?”

He opened the cover. The simple inscription was barely legible anymore, the ink faded to beige and the paper grown brittle. He turned to a safe, familiar poem in the middle. One that he could translate without discomfort, if asked. He read aloud: “Ai. Laurie lantar lassi surinen, yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron.”  
Freor stared. “Oh. I assumed just the letters were tengwar but that’s… what is that?”  
“Quenya.”  
Freor’s eyebrows rose. “Elvish? They still teach Elvish in Gondor?”  
“Sometimes.”  
“Why?”  
“Why did you learn Khuzdul?”  
“That’s different. There aren’t any elves left.”  
“Because it would be sad for all that knowledge and wisdom and light to be lost.”  
“But haven’t all the ancient books been translated already?”  
“Yes, but there’s meaning- and beauty- that gets lost in translation, especially in poetry. Meter, rhyme… just the sound. It’s difficult to mimic Elvish rhythm in the common tongue. This is all late Elvish poetry, and I’m so glad you found it. I thought I’d lost it.”

  


Legolas had never been sure who was responsible for publishing the collection (or gathering it together, for that matter), but suspected it was Eldarion, done in honor of his parents after Elessar’s death. It had apparently happened not long after he and Gimli sailed for Aman. Legolas had been unaware of its existence until he’d been back in Middle-earth for many years (at least, he didn’t remember ever hearing any of the newly-arrived elves in Aman mention it), and upon discovering it had been amazed and greatly comforted. The inclusion of Galadriel’s lament was something of a surprise, and one for which Legolas himself was partly responsible, but he had not known at the time he was asked to transcribe it that one day it would make its way into the last great book of Elvish lore ever produced in Middle-earth. Since its original appearance early in the Fourth Age it had been re-printed, re-translated, and re-distributed countless times. Among people of a scholarly bent it was considered a literary classic, and included lays and songs composed by many he had known and loved. The copy he held now had been given to him as a gift by Gimli’s incarnation of three hundred years before, and his memory of the occasion was as fresh and bittersweet as it had been the day that one died. Leif had taken his loss of the book quite hard. In his darker moments he’d thought it an omen: All things pass away, even memory. And today Freor just happened upon it, like buried treasure. Like a miracle. 

Freor grinned at him. “You’re a scholar.”  
Leif smiled a little, his eyes not leaving the book. “Hardly.”  
Freor grinned wider. “A linguist!”  
Leif's smile spread across the rest of his face. “If the word ‘classicist’ passes your lips I shall be forced to beat you at scrabble.”  
Freor’s Gimli-eyes flashed. “Philologist.”  
“You have thrown down the gauntlet, my friend.”  
“Ready when you are,” but Freor’s grin faded. This new information wasn’t enough to confirm his suspicions about Leif’s identity, but it certainly didn’t lay them to rest either. “I think... it’s silly, but when we play duets you look… I don’t know- like I always imagined the elves might have looked, long ago. And lo and behold... you know Elvish.”  
Leif shrugged. “Plenty of people learn Elvish, even here. U.D. has a big classics department.”  
Freor nodded. He gestured to the book. “Will you read some more?”

Leif breathed deeply before beginning again. “Yeni ve linte yuldar avarnier mi oromardi lisse-miruvoreva. Andune pella, Vardo tellumar nu luini yassen tintillar i eleni omaryo airetari-lirinen. Si man i yulma nin enquantuva?” He stopped and turned the page, but did not continue reading aloud. He glanced over that page, smiling, and then the next, and the next, reading here and there and sometimes caressing the pages. He was obviously happy to have the book again, but his expression hinted at sadness as well. After a minute of watching him Freor said, “I’ve never heard it spoken before. I didn’t know how it sounded.”  
Leif looked up- startled out of his reverie- and seemed almost surprised to find Freor still there. “Oh. No, I guess you wouldn’t have. What did you think?”  
“It’s nice. Like… rain? Maybe a river. What did it mean?”  
“I'm not much of a translator."  
“Just the general idea.”  
“ _The years have passed like draughts of sweet wine in the halls beyond the West, beneath Varda’s blue heavens where the stars tremble at her voice, singing. Who now will re-fill the cup for me?_ More or less.”  
“Huh. Is the whole book like that?”  
“Mostly. You might know it, actually. It’s called “Songs of the Eldar East of the Sea”. It’s taught in schools, but maybe not dwarf ones.”  
“Oh, yeah. It was on one of our lit class reading lists, but there were hundreds and we only had to pick a couple dozen. I’m sure I’ve read parts of it. I take it you like it.”  
“Mm.”  
“Do you have a Westron version?”  
“No, but Haakon down the road might have one. I could go ask him if you’re interested.”  
“Nah, I can go to the library on Monday. Besides, we’ve got a kitchen to finish.” He held out a hand for the book. “Shall I put it back?”  
Leif handed it over. “Would you put it on the sofa? I want to read some later.”  
“Sure.” Freor disappeared into the living room, and when he came back he was tightening hairbands and re-adjusting his kerchief. They returned to work.


	9. What I Offer is a Game

F.A. 2061, June 24th. (Three weeks later.) Dale.

Freor made no move to leave after his piano lesson. Instead he said, “Got any more students coming?"  
"Not until after supper."  
"How about that scrabble game I owe you?"

* * *

Early in the game Freor played ELF for a triple letter score on the F. He then said, “Hey, speaking of, I guess you must know quite a bit about elves. You'd have to to learn their language. Languages.” Leif played RAVEN on the E in ELF and said, “More than your average person, I suppose."  
"Were they really that different from us? Or is it just that they lived forever? 'Live', I mean." Freor played HARE. "If they lived forever then I guess they still are."  
Leif rearranged the letters on his stand. "I couldn't say."  
"I'd’ve thought that book might give you an impression."  
"Well, in general, the authors sound both sad and hopeful, so in that sense no, they weren’t much different from other people. But then most of it was written at a time when elves were leaving Middle-earth en masse." Leif played EQUAL.  
“Where did you say you grew up, again?”  
Leif looked up. "What?"  
Freor met his gaze. "Where did you grow up?"  
"Oh." Leif returned his attention to the board. "The Greenwood."  
Freor frowned. “The Greenwood.”  
Leif nodded, moving his letters around.  
Freor played QUIZ on a double word score and said, “Which has been a national park for generations.”  
Leif didn't react. His eyes went from his letters to the board and back again.  
Freor grinned and said, “What, are you ashamed of your hometown or something?”  
Leif regarded his selection of R P D N S T E, and then chuckled internally at whatever vala was responsible for ridiculous scrabble tiles. “It wasn’t a great place to be a kid." He played SPIDER.  
Freor watched Leif's fingers on his tiles. The skin on his hands was smooth and unblemished, his nails perfect. "Can I ask you something personal?"  
"Sure."  
"How old are you?"  
Leif sat up very straight and said "Freor!" with a look of mock indignation. "Manners! Don't you know not to ask a man his age?"  
Freor, cursed with an abundance of Gs, played GORGE. "Or maybe I should ask how old you were when I met you, because that was almost twenty-five years ago and you look exactly the same. Not strange for an adult dwarf, but..."  
Leif shrugged. "What can I say? Good genes."  
"No kidding."  
Leif played THAN.  
Freor considered Leif's hair. It was thick and bore no trace of gray, which was common enough, but also perfectly straight and smooth, which wasn't. It fell to his shoulders, and despite its length (which didn't seem to have changed any in the year of their acquaintance), Freor had never seen him wear it up, or even pushed behind his ears. "Can I ask you something else personal?"  
Leif grinned but didn't meet Freor's eyes. "I don't know- you planning to be rude again?"  
"Maybe."  
"Have at it."  
Freor played WING. "You never talk about your family."  
"Mm. No, I suppose not."  
"Don't you have any?"  
"Yes, but most of them I never see."  
"Where are they?"  
"Out west." Leif played WREAK.  
"You write to one another?"  
"No."  
Freor breathed and looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. I guess that was rude. It's just hard for me to imagine. I'm so close to mine."  
"It's all right. How's Hildis?"  
"A little bored. She likes Drinsburg and she’s made some good friends there, but expects to be burned out on the work by the time her mining term is up. She plans to try something else then, but doesn’t know what yet." He played JUST.  
Leif considered, played FLORAL, and said nothing.  
Freor studied his letters, played AGAIN, and said nothing.  
Leif scratched his chin, played MOVE, and said nothing.  
Freor kept his eyes on the board, played AXES and said, "Can I ask you one more thing?"  
"Is it personal?"  
"Maybe. Not sure."  
"Go ahead."  
"Do you think there are any elves left in Middle-earth?" Freor looked at his letters, the board, the table, the lamp, their glasses of beer- everything but up at Leif- and waited for an answer. And waited. 

Eventually Leif, blessed with a blank, played HOME and said, "Yes."  
Freor did look up then, and "Yes?" had already left his lips before he realized that Leif was wearing his other face. And his eyes were open, and he was watching Freor.  
"Yes."  
Freor swallowed. "Why?"  
Leif regarded him for a long moment before answering, head cocked to one side. "I apologize for not telling you before. I wanted to, but it's a hard thing to explain. It's not something I share with people. I wouldn't be telling you now if you hadn't already guessed."  
Freor blinked rapidly, his mouth opening and shutting twice soundlessly before he managed to say anything. "You..."  
Leif waited, but Freor seemed unable to form his question. "You may not appreciate the difference, but I never claimed to be a man, specifically. But, obviously, I imply it day in day out, so I suppose it amounts to lying anyway. There are only two kinds of people in the world, right? Men and dwarves. I'm obviously not a dwarf, so what else could I be?"  
Freor stared, a deep crease between his brows. "You're putting me on."  
"I was putting you on before. Not now. Not that I expect you to trust what I say anymore."  
"You can't... you can't be. It's impossible."  
"Improbable."  
Freor leaned in over the table for a closer look at his friend. "Your face. Your skin? Everything."  
"I can alter how I look, a bit. Or rather, how people perceive my appearance. I'm not really sure how I do it, but it's effective enough that most people never notice there’s a ghost living down the street. I'm glad you saw through it, though. I’m relieved I won’t have to hide it from you anymore.”  
Freor nodded slowly. "I understand why you keep it a secret. But... it's unbelievable."  
"Yes." Leif drew four tiles from the little cloth bag. "It's your turn."  
Freor looked down at his tile stand. C W B D S P T. "I don't have any vowels."  
"There are a couple open Os."  
Freor sat back heavily in his chair. "You tell me this and just... go back to playing scrabble? What am I supposed to do with this?"  
"Write me off as a crackpot. I hope we can be friends anyway."  
Freor chewed his lip, shaking his head again. "Can I see your ears?"  
Leif pulled an elastic cord out of his pocket and pulled his hair into a ponytail. Freor's jaw dropped. They were astonishing. He got up from his chair and went round the table to Leif's side. His hand was halfway up to Leif's head when he remembered himself and drew it back. He whispered, "Good genes."  
Leif nodded.  
"How old _are_ you?"  
"A little over three thousand."  
“No. That’s… No."  
Leif only nodded, a little apologetically.  
“Are there others? Living among us? In disguise?”  
“Not that I know of. I haven’t seen any in a long time.”  
“Would you recognize one? If it were disguised, like you?"  
“Probably, but I can’t be certain.”  
“That’s why you never look like you forgot to shave.”  
Leif grinned. “I couldn’t grow a beard if I tried.”  
Freor gazed at him warily, eyes bright. He said, "But... they all sailed west. Why didn’t you?”  
“I did. I came back.”  
Freor boggled. "You came back? Why? I thought Valinor was paradise. Elf-paradise, anyway.”  
“It is for most people. Not me, though. I'm not the only one who ever came back, but it’s rare. I only ever met a handful of people besides myself who returned from there, and they all went back again eventually.”  
Freor returned to his chair. "So is any of what you said true? The Greenwood, your family, Gondor?" He played COST.  
"Yes, all of it. I grew up in the Greenwood, and it was less pleasant then. My family is in Aman, and I spent a good deal of time in Gondor when I was younger, but that was some time ago." He played BITE.  
"Who else knows?"  
"No one in Dale or the Kingdom. There may still be a few elderly dwarves in the Grey Mountains who know, but that's it."  
“You’ve been living here for twenty-five years and no one else knows?”  
“Correct.”  
“Why me?”  
“You figured it out.”  
“No, I just thought…” Freor tugged at his beard. “You mean no one else has?”  
“No.”  
“Not even Gus, or Astrid?”  
“No.”  
“Tarn, then.”  
Leif shook his head.  
“Walda.”  
“No, but I will have to tell them eventually. Time is getting on.”  
“NObody?”  
“Well what was it that made _you_ suspect me?”  
Freor nodded toward him. “That.”  
“Exactly. Most people never see this.”  
“But they must get suspicious after a while, what with the not aging.”  
“Probably, but people are too polite to mention it. And one of the advantages of living in a big city is that I can move across town when I need to and not run much risk of bumping into my old neighbors. But yes, friends are harder.”  
“Why did you let me see?”  
“I didn’t realize I had. It was an accident.”  
“It was the music?"  
“Mm.”  
“And you can just… turn it on and off?”  
In less than a second the beautiful, miraculous elf disappeared and plain-old-mannish-Leif replaced him, and Freor felt something inside himself crumple at the sight. “No don’t- “  
The elf returned, and it was like stepping into a hearth-warmed room on a chilly day. Freor breathed. “I mean…” He didn’t know what he meant.  
“Actually there is one thing that was a deliberate falsehood, but a use-name is as a use-name does. I am- or was, back when Sindarin names were common- called Legolas.”  
Something about the Ls sounded foreign, and when Freor tried it the name felt odd in his mouth. “Legolas.”  
Legolas smiled, and it was different from any smile Leif had ever given him. The crumpled feeling in Freor’s chest uncurled to normal, and then past normal to blooming. “Does that mean something or is it just a name?”  
“It means ‘green leaf’."  
Freor thought about that for a second and then laughed. “Not much of a falsehood, is it?”  
The elf kept smiling. He nodded at Freor’s tile stand. “You playing?”  
Freor played INEPT with a blank of his own. “Thank you.”  
“For?”  
“Telling me.”  
“I couldn’t keep evading your questions forever.”  
“Yes you could.”  
“Sooner or later you would have asked me outright.”  
"Maybe, but I was afraid of sounding like a lunatic. Would you have denied it if I had?”  
“No.” Legolas played ONION.  
"I can't wrap my head around it. It's like... I don't even know. Like going out for a walk and stumbling on a dragon."  
"I know it's a lot to accept, and I won't ask you not to talk with people about it, but I also don't relish the thought of explaining it more than necessary."  
Freor nodded, then once again shook his head in astonishment. "Okay." He played WEND. "Can I ask you one more thing?"  
"Sure."  
"What have you been doing all this time?"  
"This, more or less. Just living."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scrabble game works as written. I can post a list of the moves if anyone's interested.


	10. For I Would Have Him All to Myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never understood why a race/kindred that's naturally and fundamentally monogamous would also be jealous of its mates. Tolkien said in Appendix A: "For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights." But if one is secure in the biological fact that one's spouse would just never have any sexual or romantic interest in anyone besides one's self, how would jealousy even exist? There's nothing to be jealous of. BUT, this is the culture as Tolkien conceived it, so it's what I've tried to work with, despite it not making sense to me.

F.A. 2061, August. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

On Freor’s fortieth birthday, he and Heid went to Durin’s Anvil together. There, safe in the heart of the mountain, she reminded him of his true name: the eternal name given him by Mahal. She shared with him wise words on adulthood’s responsibility, and warned him never to speak his name outside an anvil-room. “Your true name guards you against subordination to another’s will, but only while it remains secret. If known it is a great danger.” She also told him that not all marriages are the same, which was something he’d never heard before. She and Fror had given him The Talks when he was twenty and thirty so he had a pretty clear idea what marriage was about and what might happen to him someday, but they had not revealed then that there was also another way: a second wedding, both deeper and more dangerous. Heid explained that should two in love wish it, they might entrust their secret names into one another’s safe-keeping. She even taught him the ceremony, but assured him that many people never took that step, and the marriages of those who refrained were no less true or loving or happy than their counterparts. And together they grieved the loss of Fror, and gave thanks for Hildis and Sindri and Holde and Hoenir and Frerin and all their family and loved ones. When they left the anvil-room the doors remained open behind them, and just outside the outer door they embraced for a time before walking home together.

That night Freor had the worst nightmare of his life. He woke gasping. Even as he sat up the dream still crowded in around his eyes in the dark, echoing. Scolding him. Angry. _He and Leif are among thousands of dwarves and men in the vast park on the edge of Dale. One moment they are walking together, and the next Freor is alone. In his fright he forgets what his friend is called and instead cries out his true name. “Hervenn!” Those around him pay no heed, oblivious they bear witness to sacrilege. The crowd churns about him as he pushes through this way and that. He calls again, “Hervenn!”, but nothing. After a black eternity of searching he breaks free of the throng and finds himself at the edge of the Running River. He spies his friend sitting alone on the bank and approaches him. “Hervenn, where did you go? I lost you in the crowd.” His friend turns and looks behind them. He asks, “What crowd?” Freor turns to look, and all the people are gone. The park is empty. The city is empty. Bewildered, Freor turns again to his friend, but he is gone, too. The riverbank is empty._

It wasn’t morning yet, and Freor tried to go back to sleep, but the dream horrified him and guilt kept him awake a good while. The next time he saw Leif he was unable to speak of it. 

* * *

Their friendship changed. There was no way it couldn't after a revelation so momentous. Freor respected Leif's wish to remain anonymous, and still went to Dale for piano lessons, and they still talked, but Leif, while more open about his appearance, seemed to become less so about himself. Freor was desperately curious about his life, and though Leif answered his questions in a general way, it was also clear that discussing it made him uncomfortable. Sometimes when Freor asked him things Leif just looked thoughtful and then changed the subject. He hadn't exactly withdrawn, but he did put a distance between them that saddened Freor. They'd always been comfortable together before. When Leif was still a man Freor felt like he could tell him anything, and had thought that Leif felt the same, despite Freor's being so young. They'd been good friends. But now that he was an elf Leif was so... careful. Like he was checking every sentence before he spoke it and censoring out anything he didn't think Freor should hear. Like he thought Freor's little mortal brain needed to be protected from the awful weight of the elf's unimaginable depth of experience. And maybe it did, but he still missed the old Leif, and was frustrated with the new one.  
  
When summer began to wane he stopped trying to ask Leif about his past, hoping that removing the source of tension from their conversations would loosen him up a bit. So they spoke of politics and craft, music and gossip, food and art and jokes and the stuff of the present (never history), and it did help, but it wasn’t what he really wanted. And the fact that Freor kept having the nightmare didn't help matters. He had it again the night after he started chef school in September, and twice more that month. It changed a bit each time, but the name was always the same, and the guilt didn't lessen. He couldn't decide whether to tell Leif about it. He honestly didn't know what the right thing to do was. When the leaves began to change color he had it again, only this time a new detail struck him on waking. He'd said, "I've been seeking you long in the crowd," and Leif said, "Freor, my long-seeker, what crowd?" 

  


The next time he went to Dale for a lesson he said, before they had even begun, “I thought of something.”  
"Oh?”  
“ _There is one elf still who haunts dwarvish lands._ “  
Leif shook his head, puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”  
“The fairy tale. Longseeker.”  
Leif blinked and raised his eyebrows. Freor explained, “We have this fairytale- well, it’s too short to be a real fairytale, it’s more of a nursery rhyme. Except it doesn’t rhyme. Anyway, It goes: _There is one elf still who haunts dwarvish lands. He lived here Under the Mountain in the time of King Barin, and now wanders Middle-earth, always seeking._ And here you are, haunting a dwarvish land. Not wandering though, I guess. Does that mean anything to you?”  
Leif blinked again. “Is there more to that story?”  
“Not really. By tradition the children know to ask at that point _Seeking what?_ And their mothers or older brothers shout _YOU!_ and tickle them.” He smiled at a happy memory. “It’s really just an excuse to make kids laugh. And then afterward the parent says _None can say. Maybe if you live to be as old as grandfather you’ll see him someday._ It has to be about you. I mean... is it?”  
Leif frowned. “I guess it must be.”  
“You’re seeking something?”  
“Well... in the same way that we all are, I suppose. Everyone’s life is a search.”  
“Yeah, but most people don’t have fairy tales told about theirs.”  
“Most people don’t live to be thousands of years old.”  
Freor conceded the point with a nod. “True.”

Legolas was amazed the legend still survived in any form. Few and far between were the people to whom he entrusted that knowledge. It could conceivably have been passed down in the families of some of Gimli’s incarnations, but here? He hadn’t even acquired that nickname yet when he lived here with Buri.


	11. The Teeth of Winter

F.A. 2061, December. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

In hindsight, Freor could see with perfect clarity when it began. Of course he didn’t at the time- who ever does? In November his family had drawn one another’s names from a bowl for their annual Yule gift exchange, and a few days later his mother asked him what was on his list, which didn’t lend itself easily to speculation. If his grandmother had asked him he’d assume his grandfather had drawn his name, but Mom could have been asking for anyone. Not that it mattered- he couldn’t think of anything anyway. He said, “I’ll think about it and let you know.” He did think about it, and thought, and thought some more, and then gave up, hoping he’d see something that caught his eye.  
  
That week at piano he mentioned the family gift tradition in conversation and Leif asked him “So what _would_ you like for Yule?”, and Freor had the thought, sudden and unbidden: ‘To find you and rest.’ At the time he didn’t identify the idea as anything other than strange - ( _Find him? He’s right here. And I can rest anytime_ ) - and he kept it to himself. It obviously wasn’t something a family member could give him (even if he could figure out what it meant) and he blinked in surprise at himself before answering, “That’s the trouble: I don’t know.”  
“It needn’t be something material. Maybe an afternoon’s ice-skating or something like that? An experience. Tickets to a ballgame.”  
Freor nodded. An experience. “Yeah. You’re right- that’s it. Thanks.”  
“Don’t mention it.”  
Freor asked, “So what are you doing for Yule?”  
“I don’t know yet. I might hike around the mountain and sing to Varda.”  
“In this snow?”  
“Yes.”  
“Alone?”  
“Yeah, but it's not like I plan to summit, I'll just stroll up to the south look-out."  
“Sounds like a long, cold day."  
“Snow and cold don't bother me as much as they do most people."  
“Mm. Well then would you like to spend Yule Eve with us?”  
“I’d be delighted, thanks. I’ll bring some eggnog.”  
“What’s that?”  
“A recipe I picked up out west.”

On Yule Eve the whole family (plus Frerin’s friend Sana) gathered at Heid’s house for supper. Leif knocked- melted snowflakes clinging to his wool hat- with an armful of biscuits and two stoppered bottles of something opaque and pale yellow. Frerin greeted him at the door. “Oh hello, you must be Freor’s friend. I’m his uncle Frerin. Here, I’ll put those in the kitchen.” Frerin held out his arms and Leif handed over the goods. “Is it snowing again?”  
“Yep. Has been all afternoon.”

After supper they played games and everyone tried Leif’s strange egg drink. Freor wasn’t sure he liked it, but there was enough whiskey in it to cancel out the other ingredients (notably milk and cream) to which he might have objected. Freor kept finding himself hoping that Leif would drink a little too much and want to stay the night in the Kingdom. He even went so far as to re-fill Leif’s glass before it was empty. But when the cookies and eggnog were gone and Hoenir had soundly won their game of Kingdomopoly (which was typical), Leif thanked them all for the lovely evening and wished them a Happy Yule and went to fetch his jacket and hat from the hall closet. Freor followed.  
“Are you sure you want to walk home in this weather? We have a spare mattress and blankets and stuff, and the radiator keeps the living room nice and warm. Then you wouldn’t have to come all the way back to the mountain in the morning for your climb.”  
Leif regarded him smiling, wrapping a green-and-white-striped scarf around his neck. “I’d need to go home for my gear regardless, but thank you.”  
“Oh. Yeah. Well, shall I walk you to the gate?”  
“Sure.”

The warden was bundled up better than Leif was, but Freor could tell long before they reached the gate that the storm had stopped. No snow fell to obscure the light of the lamps lining the Dale road, no wind whipped ‘round to sting ears and noses and needle through coats. It was a perfect, peaceful, star-lit Yule Eve, and there was no reason for Leif not to walk home on such a night. Nevertheless Freor said, “You can’t go home in this, you’ll catch your death.” He hoped it would come out sounding like a joke, and was relieved when Leif laughed. The elf turned toward him. “Thanks for tonight. Have a great time tomorrow.”  
“You too. Good luck out there.”  
Leif began to extend a hand but Freor pulled him into a hug instead. They said goodnight, and Leif left the Lonely Mountain. Freor turned and headed for home, and did not think about his peculiar Yule wish.  


* * *

  
The next morning Freor’s family breakfasted on his celebrated maple pancakes and exchanged gifts. In the early afternoon- though they didn’t know it- the snow began again. It fell thick and fast and cold on the mountain above their heads and all the land around. After an early (and much too big) dinner they went for a stroll through the neighborhood saying hello to their neighbors, walking Holde and Hoenir and Frerin to their own homes and dropping Sindri at a friend's house, and had just returned to their front door when Freor noticed a very wet and very tired-looking man walking slowly towards them. No, not a man- Leif wearing his public face- and Freor thought he might have been limping. He seemed borne down by the pack on his back, and he wasn't smiling. He was still a good ten yards away and Heid had stepped into the house already. Freor was alone on the front step.

"Leif?" he said, when the elf was in earshot. Leif didn't reply, but dropped his pack on the ground before their door and sat down heavily, wincing as he did so. "You okay?"  
"I picked the wrong day to hike around the Mountain."  
"What happened?"  
"Blizzard. Complete white-out. Couldn't see a thing. Got lost."  
"Geez. You all right?"  
"Probably. Got my boot wedged in a rock for a while. My ankle hurts."  
He looked pale and Freor saw he was shivering. "Here, come inside and get warm. I'll get your stuff."

Freor went in with the pack and found Leif next to the radiator with his knees drawn up. He dropped the pack in the corner, pulled a blanket from the sofa and wrapped it around the elf's shoulders. "Mom?" he called into the kitchen, "Will you bring the brandy in here?" He turned back to his friend. "What can I do?"  
"I just need to warm up a bit."  
"You're soaking wet."  
"It's okay, it's wool." He was still shivering.  
Heid came in with a bottle and two short glasses. When she saw the pair on the floor she said, "Heavens, Leif, what happened to you?"  
"He got caught in a blizzard."  
"I'll be fine, I just need to warm up." Leif clutched the blanket around him. Melted snow dripped from his hair.  
She poured a glass and handed it to Freor, who handed it to Leif, who drank. "Thanks." He handed it back.  
Heid walked out again saying, "I'll draw a hot bath."  
Leif nodded. "Thank you." Freor wrapped an arm around him and rubbed his shoulders. "Will you help me get my boots off? The right's okay but my left ankle might be tricky."  
Freor unlaced Leif’s right boot and pulled it off. It had done its job (the sock was dry), but he could feel that the elf's foot was cold inside it.  
"I should be on the couch for the other one."  
Freor helped him up onto the sofa. Leif placed his left foot flat and square on the floor. Freor pulled the wet laces loose, and stopped short when Leif hissed in pain. Freor winced. "I'm sorry."  
" 'Sokay." Freor proceeded more gently. He pulled the laces slowly through their grommets all the way down to the toe, then peeled the tongue back to reveal Leif's ankle and give his foot as much moving room as possible.  
"If I hold the boot still can you pull your foot out?"  
"I think so."  
Freor knelt beside the sofa on Leif's left, braced his boot against the floor with one hand, and held the tongue back with the other. Leif stood, weight on his right leg and steadying himself with a hand on Freor's shoulder, and tried to pull his left from the boot. He grimaced, gritted his teeth, and pulled it out. "Ow."  
Freor set the boot aside and the elf lowered his foot to the floor again. Leif looked down at the dwarf kneeling beside him, and Freor looked up. "The sock?"  
"You have scissors?"  
Freor went into the kitchen and emerged with scissors in one hand and a red-and-white-striped peppermint stick in the other. He handed the sweet to Leif and then knelt beside him again and tried to determine how best to cut the sock off his foot.  
"What's this?" Leif asked, indicating the peppermint stick.  
"A distraction. Happy Yule."  
Leif stuck one end in his mouth. "Thanks."  
"I'll make a snip in the toe and then cut it right up the middle of the top of your foot, okay? Don't flinch."  
With the sock cut away from Leif's foot it was obvious his ankle was swollen and bruised.  
"I suppose I should ice it, but I don't think I could handle any more ice today."  
“I think you need warming up more. Want some help getting to the bathroom?”  
Leif shook his head, flexing his ankle experimentally. “I’ll be all right if I go slow.”  
“There are a couple elastic bandages in the cupboard.”

While Leif was in the bath and Freor in the kitchen heating up leftovers, Heid went into Freor’s bedroom and dragged Hildis’s old mattress out through the hall and into the living room, and then into Sindri’s room and brought hers out, too. She laid them end-to-end beside the radiator, then fitted them with sheets, blankets, and a pillow. The resulting bed was absurdly long, and of course the blankets didn’t cover it all. When Leif emerged pink and refreshed from the bath and saw the long bed he smiled gratefully and said, “No, really, I feel much better. I’m fine- I’ll walk home tonight.” Heid insisted. Leif insisted right back. Freor said, “Here. At least have some supper first. I'll walk him home, okay Mom? If anything happens I'll be there."  
  
Half an hour later Freor and Leif set out. Leif’s going was slower than usual, and he made no complaint, but less than halfway to the gate he asked, “Are you certain it would be all right if I slept at your house tonight?”  
“Of course.”  
“It’s worse than I realized.”  
“Wait here. I’ll go find a cart and wheel you home.”  
Leif laughed. “No. Dale would be too far, but back to your house I can handle.

An hour later Legolas lay snug in blankets, listening to the low hum of the radiator. His feet extended a good eight inches onto the second mattress. Earlier he had said, “I expect a night’s rest will do wonders. I’ll be fine in the morning,” and Freor had replied, “Call if you need anything,” and now Legolas lay warm in the happy, available fantasy suggested by the knowledge that Gimli was just down the hall, right there if the elf needed him. And in the morning he would make coffee and lure Freor out of bed with it early, quietly, before Heid was awake, and they would make breakfast together in her cheerful kitchen, and he would pretend to himself that their nights and mornings and breakfasts and blankets were once again woven together, shared, inseparable as cold from snow. He would pretend that at any moment Gimli might spring fully-formed from his sweet Freor childhood, awake and aware and adult, and they would leave their half-eaten eggs on the table and dive back into the living-room mattress and there take their ancient, desperate pleasure together, heedless of his mother sleeping in the next room.

Legolas was so lost to this fantasy that the barefoot and enflannelled Freor was nearly beside him before he noticed. The dwarf tiptoed around him and stretched out on the living room sofa in the dark, wrapping himself in a blanket. Legolas whispered, “You all right?”  
“Oh, sorry. Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d try the sofa. Do you mind? I promise I’ll be quiet.”  
“No, it’s fine.”  
“Thanks. Good night."  
“Good night.”  
Freor fell asleep in a few minutes, and then the elf was left alone with him, inexplicably four feet away. Legolas cleared the fantasy from his mind. He slept. 

* * *

Freor woke very early with a crick in his neck from the sofa cushion. He had never put much stock in the idea that the valar affected the weather, but he needed someone to thank for granting his strange, unspeakable Yule-wish (in some measure at least), so the valar it was. Leif was still asleep. Freor listened to him breathe for a few moments, and then returned to his own bed. His understanding that this night had been The Beginning didn’t come until months later. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leif's eggnog recipe is stellar. Lemme know if you want it.


	12. Such is the Day, Will He or Nay

F.A. 2062, March. Dale.

_Freor and Leif are among thousands of dwarves and men in the vast park on the edge of Dale. One moment they are walking together, and the next Freor is alone. In his fright at losing the elf he cries out “Hervenn!” The crowd churns about him as he pushes his way through, and those in earshot turn to look at him, horrified that he has committed this indecency. Ashamed and desperate he calls again “Hervenn!” The crowd is angry, but his friend is nowhere to be seen. After a black eternity of searching he breaks free of the throng and finds himself at the edge of the Running River. He spies his friend sitting alone on the bank and approaches him. “Hervenn, Hervenn, where were you? I've been seeking you long in the crowd.” His friend turns. He says, "And so you have found me, long-seeker. Is your search ended, then?" The crowd behind Freor surges forward, surrounding him, and then Hervenn is engulfed by the mass of people and disappears again._

There was a sharp rap at Leif’s front door. He glanced unnecessarily at the clock on the wall. He knew without looking that Bundin was early for her lesson again, but this was worse than usual, and she’d never knocked with such impatience. He put down his pliers with a sigh and stepped over to the door. He opened it and found not the girl he expected but an agitated dwarf instead.  
“Can I talk to you?”  
“Sure, come in.”  
Freor had barely crossed the threshold when words started pouring out of him. “I’m sorry. I mean I guess it’s a stupid thing to apologize for but I can’t not apologize, it’s so- I thought I could ignore it but it suddenly got worse. I don’t know what it means and I hate it.” Freor paced around his front room while Leif regarded him, hands in pockets. “I know it’s not real but it makes me feel guilty. I didn’t want to tell you; I don’t know how, but I can’t- I’m afraid to go to sleep anymore.” Freor stopped in front of the picture window, facing out.  
“What is it?”  
“A recurring dream.”  
“About me?”  
Freor nodded.  
“Okay.”  
“No.”  
“It’s bad?”  
“Yes.”  
Legolas waited for Freor to continue, but nothing. “Whatever it is you dreamt, I won’t hold it against you. We don’t choose our dreams. I’m happy to listen if you think it’ll help.”  
“It doesn’t make any sense.”  
“Dreams seldom do.”  
“It’s nonsense even for a dream. I can’t even describe it.”  
“Except that it’s bad, and about me.”  
“Right.”

Legolas barely wanted to speculate about the tangled universe of memory that Gimli’s subconscious might throw up at him while he slept. “Do I… mistreat you? In your dream?”  
The dwarf’s head snapped back a fraction, which could have meant anything. “You? No, no. The opposite.”  
_Oh dear._ “I’m… extra nice to you?”  
“No, I meant... I mistreat you.”  
“Oh. Well, am I hurt by it?”  
Freor turned, brows folding like the thought hadn’t occurred before. “Uh… you don’t seem to be, but that’s not the point.” He was reluctant to go on.  
“Okay, well, what happens?”  
Freor looked Leif in the eye, clenching his jaw. “I… hm. I say your name- your real name- in a place where other people can hear it. And do.”  
Legolas blinked in surprise. Two thousand years together and Gimli managed to come up with a new one. “You want to sit down?” Freor nodded, pulled off his raincoat, and slumped into the couch. Leif sat on the piano bench. “How do I react?”  
“You don’t. I mean you do, but you don’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with it.”  
Legolas nodded. “Why do you say it?”  
Freor’s brows crease again. “Because I can’t remember your use-name. I lose you in a crowd and once you’re gone I can’t remember the name ‘Leif’, so I call for you with the only one I can remember.”  
“Huh.” Legolas scratched his chin. “Clearly this bothers you a lot, but compared with all the terrible things you could be dreaming, it doesn’t sound so bad.”  
“I guess not, but a) why would I dream about knowing your name in the first place, and b) then use it in public? That’s horrible. Unthinkable. I’d never do that.”  
“Of course you wouldn’t. It’s all right.”  
“And if it’d been one dream that would be one thing, but it keeps happening. Like it’s supposed to mean something. I can’t imagine what.”  
“So… we’re in a crowd, we get separated, you forget my use-name and call me with my real one, and that’s okay with me. It sounds like using it was an effective way to find me, at least.”  
Freor dropped his eyes, shaking his head. “No, there’s more to it than that. It wasn’t until I escaped the crowd that I found you. Calling didn’t work.”  
“What happened when you found me?”  
“The crowd disappeared. At first. Then last night it just swallowed you up again.”

It clearly wasn’t Memory- at least not the kind he usually had- but it was obviously a shout from Gimli’s subconscious rather than Freor’s, and Legolas wished he were in a position to offer better comfort. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll always know where to find me.”  
“I know. That’s not it.”  
“What, then?”  
“It’s your name that’s freaking me out.” Legolas raised his eyebrows. “Not the name itself- the fact that I know it. I mean I don’t really, obviously; it’s just a dream. There’s no way I could. It’s just…” He made a frustrated noise. “I can’t have that knowledge!”  
“Freor, you don’t. It was a random nonsense word that your brain made up in your sleep.”  
“Every time I’m with you I worry I’ll just blurt it out. That the next word out of my mouth will be your name.”  
“Which would be just a random nonsense word that your brain made up in your sleep. Even on the million-to-one chance you were right, we’re alone here. If you did say it, no one but me would hear. It would still be all right. And now that you’ve talked about it the dream probably won’t recur. “  
Freor pushed himself up off the sofa and resumed pacing. “Tell me I’m wrong.”  
“You’re wrong. You couldn’t possibly be right.” Legolas was doing his best to be calm and soothing, but Freor grew more strident.  
“You don’t know. You don’t know the name in my head. You can’t say I’m wrong if you don’t know.”

And that was true. Had it been anyone else in the world Legolas could have said with confidence that Freor did not- could not- know his name. But it was obvious that something difficult was bubbling under the surface, and he had no reason to think that a piece of Gimli hadn’t broken through. He suddenly realized where Freor was going with this, and that he might be careening headlong into an interaction that would be very difficult for both of them. He leaned back on the piano bench and tried to look as relaxed as elfly possible. “Freor, look at me.”  
Freor stopped pacing and stared. “What?”  
“You’re safe here. We both are. You’re in no danger of saying my name because you don’t know it.”  
“What if I did?”  
“You don’t.”  
“I’m not asking that, I’m asking ‘what if I did?’”

‘What if’, indeed? There was effectively no distinction in his mind between the fact of his true name and the fact of Gimli in his life. Before Gimli he had had no name other than Legolas, and without Gimli it was meaningless anyway. He couldn’t say ‘Then I rejoice’ and so instead he said, “Then I would trust you with it.”  
Freor’s face pinched, and then he calmed visibly. He inhaled and opened his mouth to speak but Legolas cut him off.  
“Freor, stop. Think. How will you feel when you know for sure, whether the answer is yes or no?” (That was not the real question. The real question was how would Legolas feel? If ‘yes’, then what? He certainly couldn’t deny it, and there was no way he’d be able to hide from Freor how much hearing it affected him. Indeed, he thought he might have to clap both hands over his mouth to stop himself reciprocating. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and Legolas couldn’t see past it.)  
“If, as you keep insisting, I’m wrong, as of course I must be, then it doesn’t matter. You’ll say ‘No, of course not’ and we’ll laugh and I’ll go home and never dream it again. So there’s no reason for me not to say it.”  
  
Legolas shut his eyes, willing himself to relax. What he’d just said was true: he trusted Gimli with his name. He had no fear the boy would hurt him with it. But Freor could very easily hurt himself.  
“I need to know I’m wrong.”  
“You’re wrong.”  
Freor shook his head violently. “I need to KNOW.”  
“Why? What does it matter?”  
“What does it matter? Are you serious?”  
“Yes.”  
“Because if I’m right then…” Freor waved a hand before him, expecting the thought to come. Truth was he didn’t know. What on earth would that mean? The name was spinning around in his skull like a caged raccoon, howling and angry. “I… ,” He swallowed. “Please.”  
Freor pinned Legolas with his Gimli eyes, and the elf couldn't fight the desperation he saw there. Legolas shut his own eyes again, jaw tightening, and nodded the tiniest bit.  
Freor stepped over to him and cupped both hands around Leif's ear, and when at last he overcame the silence he did no more than suggest the shape of a word around exhaled breath.  
  
“Hhhhhervenn." 

Legolas exhaled at a rush the breath he hadn’t known he held. No, it was not what Freor feared, but neither was it less of a caress against his soul than his name would have been. “Hervenn,” he breathed. Meldon. Oh thank god. Hervenn was a name they could share.

  


Once the name was spoken Freor’s mind quieted immediately. Where before his whole awareness had been consumed with the need to share it with Leif, now he was free to notice the world around him: the patter of rain on the roof, the warmth of his breath between his hands and Leif’s strange ear, and that warm-bread scent again. He stepped back, bewildered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”  
Leif raised a hand to Freor’s arm. “Do you still need to know?” Freor didn’t know how to respond. “Or was saying it enough?”  
He shook his head. “Yes.”  
“It’s not my name.”  
“Of course not. Just a dream.” He breathed in and out, slowly. “I don’t know why it bothered me so much. Or why I had to come over here and weird up your morning.”  
“On the contrary I’m glad you felt you could tell me. Now you know you have nothing to feel guilty about.”  
“Huh. Yeah.”

Freor knew he should have felt relieved, and he did, but he also realized that he’d been carrying that private name for Leif around in his head for months, like a pocket talisman, and to have it stripped of its meaning… He knew it was all just on his side, in his mind. It had nothing to do with Leif, only himself. Not something they shared. Not a connection. You can’t sever a non-connection. Freor felt severed anyway. Then he understood: it wasn’t that the dream meant something, it was that he wanted it to.  
“Leif?”  
“Yes.”  
Freor felt shy, but this new understanding of himself steeled his resolve to confront Leif about the distance that had grown between them since his secret came out. “Ever since you told me you’re an elf I feel like we’ve been… “ He stopped and tugged at his beard. “You’re good at deflecting questions about your past, so after a while I gave up asking. I know it’s not my business. But… I want to know.”  
“Know what?”  
“So much I don’t know where to start.”

Legolas was still reeling from _hervenn_ and now here was Gimli, asking to be let in, to be closer; needing to try again despite all Leif’s evasions. The urge to kiss him was so strong his chest ached with the effort of resisting it. It was true, he had kept Freor at a distance, regretting each time what all the necessary half-truths cost them both, but unable to do any better. Same as always. He remembered the last one, and the defeat he’d seen in Freor’s face when the dwarf realized he just wasn’t going to get a straight answer. He’d let the moment pass, then. He couldn’t do it again. “Start anywhere.”  
Freor met his eyes, unaware of the hope scrawled across his face in giant swirling letters.  
“I’ll answer as well as I can.”

“Why aren’t you more famous? I mean, if you’ve been around so long, living among us, why’s there only the one story about you? And it doesn’t even count as a story. Why doesn’t the whole world know who you are by now?”  
Legolas nodded. “Partly because of the disguise, and partly because I’m not ambitious. I was a minor prince long ago, and historians of the period might recognize my name, but since I returned to Middle-earth I’ve had few if any political ambitions, and people who aren’t leaders in their communities are rarely remembered in the long term. If I’d stayed in one place all this time I’d probably be locally famous, but every couple hundred years I break most of my ties with a place and go elsewhere. By the time I get back everyone who knew me is dead.”  
“Yeah, that’s another thing: Everyone you love dies, and you just have to watch it happen over and over again. I can’t begin to fathom the loss you’ve known. Must know every day. How do you stand it? You’re always saying goodbye.”  
Legolas smiled gently. ”Yes, but I’m always saying hello, too. A year ago I didn’t have a friend to play scrabble and paint the kitchen with, to see past the mask and still want to spend time with me despite it.”  
“And someday I’ll leave you too, like everyone else. You’ll go on long after I’m dead.”  
“And rejoice forever that I had the pleasure of knowing you now. Everyone loses friends, Freor. I might wish you’d never lose a single one, but it’s not like being mortal protects you from that kind of pain. If you died tomorrow you’d still have lived for two years with the pain of losing your father.”  
“No, I know, it’s just that it’s magnified so much for you. You have to live with the pain of losing everyone, forever.”  
“There’s no such thing as “everyone”. The world isn’t going to run out of people for me to love.”  
“There’s nothing permanent for you except yourself. At least if you lived in Valinor you’d have friends who wouldn’t leave you.”  
Legolas shrugged, and somehow made it look elegant. “Maybe I get tired of people. Maybe I don’t want to know everyone forever. And anyway, I’ve made peace with my life as it is, here, in Middle-earth. I love living. It would be simple enough to end it all, wouldn’t it? If life were so painful? It isn’t. I suppose you’re right: You can’t imagine my sorrow- the length of it, anyway- pretty much by definition. But neither, I think, can you imagine the depth of my joys.”  
“What _are_ your joys?” 

Legolas gazed up at him in wonder. This new Gimli, this impossibly young and endearing version of him, had just asked him what makes him happy. And without the aid of any real Memory at all. He wanted very much to take Freor’s hand.  
“Will you come out to the garden with me?”  
“It’s raining.”  
Legolas left the piano bench, crossed the room, pulled a yellow umbrella from the hall closet and handed it to Freor, who took it and chuckled.  
“All right, sure.”  
Leif led him out the kitchen door and down the back stairs. It was warm for March (snow would have been less surprising than rain), but still cold. Freor buttoned the collar of his jacket. Leif crossed to a point five yards from the house and crouched down. Freor followed and stood beside him, holding the umbrella over both their heads. The elf pointed to a spot in the lawn that looked just like all the others. “There.”  
Freor crouched down himself and looked. Just lawn. “What?”  
“A crocus. It doesn’t look like it yet, but in a few days it will bloom, purple and white. An old friend of mine- long dead, yes, but he lives on in my memory- once said, ‘In every wood in every spring there is a different green.’ Spring is glorious every single year, and not one jot less so because I’ve seen it three thousand times. More, perhaps, since I have a longer perspective on what a miracle it is that it keeps happening, year in year out, and will forever. Long after even I am gone.”

Freor stood, keeping the umbrella over himself and Leif and the crocus. “Meaning?”  
“Meaning that Spring is one of my joys.”  
“Ah. Of course. Okay, so- Spring. What else?”  
Leif stood, and Freor lifted the umbrella higher to accommodate him. “Summer, autumn, winter, music, dancing, laughing, stars, sunshine, fire, wind, wine, books, art, love, gardening, long walks, making things, rain, rivers, fields, mountains, children, parents, grandparents, poetry, compassion, freedom, fairness, mercy, hope, fireflies, peaches,… and the fact that there’s someone in my life who wants to know what makes me happy.”

Freor blinked up at him, smiling. Leif was wearing his beautiful elf face, and the wan, umbrella-filtered afternoon light bathed him in a strange gold glow. Elvish filigree indeed. “Why did you think I couldn’t imagine those? They’re not so different from my own. Except the gardening.” Freor felt Leif take the umbrella out of his hand, but found he could not look away from the elf’s eyes. Leif hooked the umbrella over his shoulder- its struts resting lightly against the crown of his head and shaft against his neck- and then Freor stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the elf’s waist, his forehead coming to rest against the chest before him. He felt the elf bend his head forward and breathe into his hair. Leif’s shirt was damp from the rain, and the warmth from his skin seeped through to Freor’s cheek. He breathed deeply, eyes shut, feeling Leif’s arms around his shoulders, listening to the garden around them. This was better than a hot bath and a soft bed combined. He thought that if he hadn’t been standing he could easily have fallen asleep. _To find you and rest._ His Yule present in March. Leif whispered, “How old are you again?”

Freor clenched his jaw. Somewhere, deep down, something small inside him hurt. He didn’t understand what, but suddenly the comfort of Leif’s arms was anything but, and he pushed himself away and retreated up the steps and into the house. He was halfway to the front door when the elf came in behind him. “Freor? What’s the matter?”  
“I came of age last summer, remember?” He snatched his rain slicker off the sofa and pulled it on. “I have to go.”  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- “  
“Don’t be. Doesn’t matter. I’ll see you around.”  
He was through the door and on his way before Leif got another word in. He didn’t look back.

Three minutes later there was a knock at the door. Bundin was exactly on time for her lesson. 

  


Two days after that Freor found a letter from Leif in his mailbox:

_Freor,_  
_I’m sorry I upset you. It was a rhetorical question. I meant only that you are unusually mature for your age. And I’m sorry if I made light of your nightmares. I didn’t stop to consider just how unsettling a dream like that would be, nor the fact that you’d had it several times and only came to me when you’d reached a crisis. I’m deeply touched that you felt able to share something so difficult with me. I’m also sorry that I’ve been keeping you at arm’s length. My history is complicated, and talking about it doubly so. It would be easier if I were a better storyteller and could distance myself from my subject, but when I recount things from my life- even things buried under centuries of history- I tend to feel them afresh. And some things, when I try to translate them across language and culture and time, quite honestly come out sounding like gibberish. But if you have any interest in giving me another opportunity to try, I’ll pay it better respect this time. It’s been a good while since I had anyone with whom I could speak openly, and I’m very grateful. Thank you._  
_-Leif_

_ps. the crocus bloomed._


	13. The Water and the Cup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tolkien described dwarves as “retentive of the memory of injuries (and of benefits)”, but the War of the Ring is about as historically distant (in years, anyway) for Freor as Alexander the Great is for us. I used to think that that meant that no “modern” dwarf could possibly have any personal feeling about it, but I recently saw Michael Wood’s documentary “In the footsteps of Alexander the Great”, wherein Wood claims that there are people in Central Asia who still hold a grudge, of a sort. Alexander is a bogeyman even to this day to the descendents of the conquered. And even those who don’t care still know the Alexander story- it permeates their folk culture. So who knows? It’s certainly possible that the Battle of Dale (and Sauron and his Easterling army) are “remembered” with ill-feeling even into Freor’s time, and the heroes still revered. Besides, dwarves typically live three times as long as men, so their kindred memory could be commensurately longer. Though that would still make The War of the Ring as distant as, say, the Norman Conquest.

F.A. 2062, April. Dale.

“So what would you like to know?”  
“Everything.”  
“There’s far too much. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”  
“At the beginning.”  
“Back to the beginning. Hm. Well, when I was young, Thrain the First was still King Under the Mountain.”  
“No, not political history, I want to know about _your_ life. I mean, unless Thrain the First was a friend of yours or something. Was he?”  
Leif laughed, and Freor thought it a beautiful sound- clear and sweet as mithril bells. “No, not at all. But there’s still far too much.”  
“I’ll bet. How do you keep all thirty-five centuries in your head?”  
“Oh, I don’t. I’ve already forgotten lifetimes more than you’ll ever know. But even then it’s still too much.”

Leif was wearing his man face, as usual. Freor thought he must have had his hair cut recently since the ends were perfectly even, though it was longer than the Dalemen wore theirs, and much shorter than most dwarves did. He supposed he’d probably seen a man or two with hair like that at some point, but he couldn’t think of anyone specific. Certainly no dwarf. Dwarf hair was like the metals and rocks they loved: tough, solid, complicated. Bright as twisted copper, dark and craggy as granite, crinkly white as a vein of quartz. Leif’s was more like... the stream flowing over the rocks. Liquid and delicate and perfectly smooth. Freor wondered how it would feel in his fingers. The pelt of a river otter came to mind, or a rabbit. Cornsilk. Fine, soft sand. “Well then what’s the first thing you remember?”

“Riding on my father’s shoulders. I don’t know how I can, though. I must have been just tiny.”  
“Your father who was king of the Greenwood elves.”  
“That’s the one. Mirkwood at the time.” Leif frowned.  
“Right, Mirkwood. You said. Didn’t you get on?”  
“We did, it’s just that he was so often my king rather than my father. But it’s not fair of me to judge him for that. He lived many difficult roles as well as he could. I don’t know that I could have done better.”  
“D’you miss him?”  
“Now and then. Not like you miss yours.”  
“Must be hard to know he’s still alive somewhere but you can never talk to him.”  
“I suppose, but it doesn’t compare to losing a parent to death. I lost my mother to a painful one when I was young. Not as young as you were, though.”  
“How did she die?”  
“Spider bite.”  
“Heavens. I’m so sorry.”  
“Thank you. It’s all right, I don’t mind talking about it now. It was difficult when I was younger, but I’ve had some practice. It was a long time ago.”

And Leif's man face, while less strange and arresting than his elf one, was no less pleasant. His eyes were bright and gentle, his smile just slightly lopsided. And his bare chin was a novelty Freor had never examined closely before. The skin there was so smooth it made him think of polished marble. He wondered if would feel like that, too. Not so cold, though, certainly. And probably softer. More like the skin of a peach. It made him wish he could see Leif’s ears again so he could examine those more closely, too. The one time he saw them he’d been struck by their shape and delicacy. They were no larger than Freor’s own- at least not proportionally so- but the upper end extended to a soft point, which was so thin it was nearly translucent. “It’s hard to believe you were ever tiny. You’re even taller than most men.”

“I’m not tall for an elf.”  
“Short?”  
“Just average.”  
“So... Valinor’s a real place.”  
“Indeed.”  
“And you lived there.”  
“Yes, long ago. But for a comparatively short time.”  
“I thought ‘Valinor’ was just a euphemism for death.”  
“The word has certainly been used that way, but it is real.”  
“Is it all elves there?”  
“Mostly. The valar live there too, and some maiar.”  
“Did you see them? The valar?”  
“Some of them.”  
“What are they like?”  
“Very, very tall. Beyond beautiful. Graceful and gracious. Frightening. Voices like music or the sea or thunder.”  
“And no one ever grows old or dies?”  
“Elves and valar and maiar just don’t. I mean obviously we _can_ die- you know that- an arrow kills an elf just the same as a dwarf or a man. Or grief. But not old age.”  
“You might die someday.”  
“Certainly. Any day, I suppose. There have been many times in my life when I expected to. Elves go- went- to war just the same as other people. On the other hand, when I lived in Valinor- actually an island off the coast, but whatever- I met elves who’d arisen in Cuivienen, and have no reason to think they aren’t living still. Of course there are more dangers here than there.”  
“What’s Cuivienen?”  
“It was a lake far to the east, where the race of elves was born, millennia before I was. Before men and dwarves- apart from Durin- existed. Before history.”  
“ ‘Before even the sun and the moon were set in the sky.’ ”  
“Quite.”  
“We heard that in school but I assumed it was just poetic.”  
“I can’t vouch from personal experience, but they claimed there was only starlight at the time.”

Freor was curious about Leif’s hands, too. He couldn’t imagine a musician’s hands being as smooth as his face. He must have calluses on his fingers from viola strings, guitar, mandolin, and on his palms from all the work he did in the garden. He wondered if elf calluses would be as tough and ridged as dwarf ones, or if they, too, would be water where a dwarf was rock. Freor watched his hands and liked the way they moved in the air as he talked. When Leif pulled one hand up and rested his chin in his palm, elbow on the table, it brought his long fingers very close to his mouth. And then Freor was curious about that, too. “You fought in a war?”

“More than one.”  
“Did you kill anyone?”  
“Orcs and goblins beyond count. And some people too, but fewer.”  
“Do the elves in Valinor fight?”  
“It has happened before, but it’s rare. Certainly not while I was there. I’ve no idea if they have since I left. I hope not. I doubt it.”  
“When were you there?”  
“Early in the Fourth Age.”  
“Do the Valar care about us? Here in Middle-earth? Do they even... see us?”  
“Oh yes. Though I can really only speak for Mahal. I talked with him about it once.”  
“You... talked... with God.”  
“I’m afraid I did, yes.”  
“You do realize this is all just impossible to believe, don’t you?”  
“Of course. It doesn’t bother me a jot that you can’t believe it. Though I’d rather you thought me mad than lying to you.”

Leif’s mouth looked... inviting.  
_What?_  
_What is this... regard? This warmth; affection? Maybe... I turned him into a substitute father after Dad died? Yeah, maybe. He doesn’t seem to mind, though._ Freor knew he was too old for a teacher-crush. Sometimes children became very fond of their teachers. Very. But so what? Such attachments were sweet and brief and meaningless and everyone knew it, including the children themselves. Sometimes a child even told her teacher how much she liked him, and the teacher would be flattered and kiss her cheek and everyone said “aw”, but no one was ever fool enough to think his affection for his teacher was love, and even if he did, he’d grow out of it by thirty and be embarrassed the idea had ever crossed his mind. It was just the way of the world. Freor also knew he was far too young to fall in love. Hell, he wasn’t even through puberty. _So then why do I want to kiss him? And see him all the time? Touch him. Why do I want him in my future? Hervenn today and tomorrow and next year and when I’m seventy. And a hundred and seventy. This is ridiculous._ “There must be nothing you don’t know by now. is there anything you can’t do? Any language you don’t speak? Anywhere in Middle-earth you haven’t been?”

Leif laughed his silvery laugh again. “Oh, plenty of things. And so much I don’t know. Though probably not many languages, no, but they change over time. The Westron we’re speaking now is somewhat different from the one they speak in Gondor, and quite different from the one I spoke a thousand years ago, which is different again from the one a thousand years before that. I’m sure there are pockets of people here and there who speak things I don’t know. And I’ve never been very far east. I’ve been out to the Sea of Rhun, and Lazvard, but that’s about it.”  
“You have the whole world to choose from and you picked Dale?”  
“Dale is really a very nice city. I won’t live here forever, but I like it for now.”  
“You planning to leave?”  
“Not at all, I just meant... I never live anywhere for more than a couple hundred years or so. I haven’t been here anywhere near that long this time. I’m far from tired of it.”  
“I suppose a dwarf would call that wanderlust, just on a grander scale. But I still don’t get why you ever left Valinor. What’s different about you that it wasn’t paradise?”  
Leif lifted his head from the cradle of his hand and dropped his eyes to the table. He looked thoughtful and little sad. And then seemed to think better of it and smiled to himself. He was clearly trying to decide how to answer. He frowned again. “I’m sorry. That’s... still unanswerable.” He looked up, his face apologetic.  
Freor shook his head slightly. “It’s okay. Some questions just are.” _Some of mine certainly are._


	14. Natural to Their Kind and Custom

F.A. 2062, May. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

“Mom, can I ask you about Dad?”  
“Sure, Honey. What is it?”  
“How long had you known him before you knew he was the one?”  
  
Heid set her cup down on the table. It wasn’t a question she’d been expecting, though she thought yet again that she ought to have learned by now not to be surprised by anything Freor said or did. “Eight years. He was a friend of a friend. We were acquaintances for some time before we started to get to know one another better, and then good friends for another few years.”  
Freor nodded. “Is that typical?”  
“Seems to be.” She smiled at the memory. “I was perhaps a bit hastier than is common. My parents were friends for fifteen years before they married.”  
“How did you know? That he was it, I mean.”  
Heid hadn’t thought about that in ages. How had she known? After a while it was just... obvious. When she got around to noticing, it seemed such a fundamental truth that she felt like she’d known it a long time already. “One day a friend asked me what I wanted from life and the only answer I could think of right then was “For Fror to be happy”. I know it’s sentimental, but it was true, and I knew it wasn’t ever going to stop being true.”  
“What did you do?”  
“Fretted, for a while. Then I realized there was really nothing else for it and told him.” She smiled. “I’m glad you asked me this now. I think it’s much easier to speak of when one is still too young to be affected.”  
“Am I?”  
“Certainly. It never happens before 50. At least not that I’ve ever heard of.”  
“How old were you?”  
“Eighty-five, and I was considered quite young. ” Freor nodded and said nothing. He chewed his pie and looked thoughtful.  
Heid was sleepy, but she thought there might be more on her son’s mind that he let on. “Is there anything else you want to know about your father?”  
“Only if you really don’t mind talking about it.”  
“Not at all.”  
“What do you think you might have done if, for some reason, he’d been…”  
“Unavailable?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I don’t know. I think I might have gone to the Glittering Caves. Been a smith for Rohan or Anorien. Tried to forget him.”  
“Does that work?”  
“It seems to, for some. I certainly hope so. I thank God every day I never had to find out. Lucky for us all Mahal was kind that day, eh?”  
“What if it didn’t have anything to do with Mahal?”  
She blinked. “Well, no, I suppose he isn’t directly involved, but-“  
“No, I mean… What if Dad hadn’t been… a dwarf?”  
Heid’s jaw tightened. “Freor…”  
“I mean it must happen occasionally, right?”  
“Why? Dwarves are made for dwarves.”  
“I’ve heard it happens sometimes.”  
She sighed and nodded, reluctantly. “So have I. I’ve never known anyone, but that must be hard.”  
“They don’t seem so different from us.”  
“They’re not, mostly. It’s just that the ways they are different are so… significant. There’s an aphorism you probably haven’t heard yet, but since we’re on the subject: ‘Men are wolves, and the dwarf that keeps one suffers much.’”  
“There are plenty of dwarves who suffer much anyway.”  
“Yes, but a dwarf at least wouldn’t treat another dwarf’s love like so much meat- to be cast aside when something fresher comes along.” Freor blinked, taken aback by his mother’s harshness. “That’s how they treat one another.”  
“You don’t know that for sure.”  
“Well, not from personal experience, no.”  
“If Dad had been a man…”  
“If you father had been a man he might never have been a father, at least not with me. I don’t know if it’s even possible. But that’s the point, see? Even if he loved me, and wanted to have children with me but couldn’t, or even _did_ have children with me, there would have been nothing stopping him from falling in love with someone else, too. They’re just built differently from us.”  
“He wouldn’t have. Not Dad.”  
“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t. But Freor, it’s not something you need to worry about, eh? There are lots of good people right here in the Kingdom. If there’s someone in the world meant for you, there’s an excellent chance they’re here already.”  
Freor nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”


	15. The Shade of Ancient Trees

F.A. 2062, June 20th. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

Hildis Heidsdottir stared down at her father’s grave for the first time in twelve months. Twelve months and eleven days. Her mother stood beside her, quiet and stoic as usual. Freor sat a little way off, humming a hymn. Sindri and their uncle wove complicated patterns in small stones over the grave. The family usually left that to Frerin since he was so good at it, but this year Sindri had asked him to teach her the art. Heid’s parents were just a few yards away, decorating Hildis’s great-grandmother’s grave. And everyone else’s parents and grandparents and children were all around them, remembering their own loved ones. The tombs were filled with lamplight and the sounds of hymns sung low, and stones clinking, and quiet laughter and tears. It was the first time in her life that Hildis had experienced the holiday in such an immediate way, and the ritual struck her as very strange. How could a grief so personal be so public?

She had had mixed feelings about going home for Ancestors’ Day. She got a month off work to return home and see her family and friends, but wasn’t really looking forward to visiting Fror’s grave. It was different when she was kid. Back then Ancestors’ Day had been about people who’d died before she was born, or when she was little. And last year they ignored the holiday since it fell so soon after the first anniversary of Fror's death, when the four of them had visited together anyway. It would have been too much, too soon. But this year Mom and Freor and Sindri wanted to go with their whole extended family, and Hildis felt the uncomfortable mixture of her need to let Fror go, and the tug of duty, and her own conflicting desires to mourn again with her family, and to forget the whole thing. So here she stood, reading the inscription over, wondering how it could possibly be so short and simple. “Fror, son of Fhol. IV, 1895 – 2060.” As if the year he’d been born and his use-name meant anything important.

Freor stood and came closer to them. “Mom, can I talk to Hildis for a minute?”  
“Sure, Honey.” Heid patted her son’s hand.  
Once they were out of earshot Freor said, “I think I saw a lamp in off in the older sections on the way in. I want to go check.”  
“It’s probably just somebody name-reading.”  
“Yeah, probably. I want to check though. Come with me?”  
“Okay.”

Freor had been acting strangely ever since she'd come home to The Kingdom three days before. Actually it had started before that, but it was harder to tell from his letters. It wasn’t until she'd seen him in person that she understood that the vague change in Freor’s writing meant trouble. He seemed down, but didn’t say anything about it, which wasn’t like him. Or if not down, just… distracted. Pre-occupied? Anyway, it used to be that Hildis was the first person Freor went to with a problem. She'd known that would probably change when she went off to the mines, but it still bugged her. Seeing Freor sad made Hildis sad, too. For a day she’d just watched, acting like everything was normal, expecting Freor to open up once they had a minute alone together. He hadn’t. So she tried prodding. Nothing. “I’m fine, Hild, nothing’s wrong.” She tried asking her sister, but Sindri said only, “Yeah, I don’t know. He won’t talk to me either. “ So when Freor pulled her away from their father’s grave, she hoped he’d decided he was ready to talk, but he was quiet still. Brooding. He was doing his best not to let on, but it showed. He’d been right about the lantern in the old section though, which was a curious thing. They headed toward it, and before long Hildis saw that it was a man. He was tall, thin, wearing A-Day whites, and standing still before a grave. Freor laid a hand on her elbow to stop her.  
“Who’s that?”  
“It’s Leif.”  
“Your friend from Dale?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Why is he in an old section of the Kingdom tombs on Ancestors’ Day?”  
“No idea.”  
She waited, expecting Freor to resume walking. He just stared into the distant lamplight. “Well aren’t you going to introduce me? I’m the only one who hasn’t met him yet.”  
“You met him when we were kids.”  
“Oh, right- at the fair. I don’t really remember that.”  
He continued to stare. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”  
“Yeah, you said you gave up lessons, but I thought you still hung out.”  
“No.”  
“But… isn’t he your best friend?”  
“You’re my best friend.”  
She rolled her eyes. “Your best local friend, then.”  
“No. Not… no.”  
“What, did you have a fight?”  
“No.”  
“Is that why you’ve been so weird lately?”  
“I keep telling you, this isn’t weird, it’s just how I am.”  
“And I keep telling you I know weird when I see it. It’s fine with me if people change, but you’re all broody. Something’s bugging you.”  
“Stop it. I don’t want to talk about it.”  
Hildis frowned. _'I don’t want to talk about it' means there’s something to talk about._ “What did he do?”  
“What are you-? Nothing. He didn’t do anything.”  
Her mind raced to uncomfortable places. Men. Shlak. Men and their goddamn lust. If the talk in the mine canteens had taught her anything, it was that men try to stick their dicks into everyone and everything, including dwarf boys. Including maybe even her little brother. “Did he-…” She swallowed and tried again. “Did he make a pass at you?”  
“NO. Mahal, will you drop it already?”  
“Then why are we standing here talking about him instead of saying hello?”  
Freor turned to her. “Look, Hild, yes Leif and I are a little weird right now but it’s… it’s not bad, all right? I’m just… adjusting.”  
“To what?”  
“I don’t know- growing up, I guess.”  
“What does that have to do with him?”  
“I’ve just been really busy with school and haven’t had a chance to see him recently, okay?”  
She narrowed her eyes. “I want to meet him.”  
He set his jaw. “Fine. Why not?”

Freor approached nervously. His recent avoidance of the elf had been deliberate. Freor's feelings worried him, and he didn’t trust himself around Leif. And Hildis chaperoning just made it worse. The elf looked up when they came near, then waved. “Leif, you haven’t met my sister yet. At least not for a long time.”  
She held out her hand. “Hildis Heidsdottir, at your service.”  
“Leif Green, at yours and your family’s. Peace to you this day.”  
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. Men rarely used the dwarvish courtesies- even Dalemen- and never the holiday formals. Freor knew Hildis would think it spoke well of Leif, if oddly. She inclined her head. “And also to you.”  
While his sister and his friend had been exchanging greetings Freor noticed the grave that had held Leif’s interest. The headstone read 

_Buri, son of Berin_  
 _IV, 839 – 1072_

There was nothing strange in that, but below the dates was a string of Elvish letters, which Freor had never in his life seen on a dwarven headstone. And on the grave itself, laid out in a simple pattern of parallel lines were… stones, yes, some of them, but also about a dozen small objects. In the low light it was a bit hard to tell, but there seemed to be- among other things- a green glass jar, a ring set with a blue stone, a leaf, and a strawberry. It was obvious that Leif had not expected to be interrupted today, and might have a difficult time explaining his actions to anyone who didn’t know his age, which was everyone but Freor.  
  
"Hildis, I’m sorry, I know we just got here, but I’d like to talk to Leif alone. Would you tell Mom I’m off name-reading? I don’t want her to worry.”  
She turned her attention back to Freor for a long moment. Her lower jaw slid all the way to the left, as it did whenever she was considering something. She glanced at Leif, then back to Freor.  
“Will you relax? Everything’s fine.”  
She nodded, though it was clear she was unconvinced. Freor knew he’d have to explain things eventually, and didn’t relish the thought.  
“Okay, I’ll tell her. Good to meet you, Mr. Green. I hope we get more of a chance to talk sometime.”  
“I’d like that.”  
She gave Freor one more hard look before heading off. Freor and Leif silently watched her go.  
  


When Hildis was out of earshot, Freor turned his attention back to the grave. “Eight thirty-nine. Unbelievable. Sometimes I forget the Kingdom’s been here that long.”  
“Much longer than that.”  
“I know. I can believe that even less. Who’s this?”  
“Buri.”  
“So I see. Who was he?”  
“My husband.”

Freor turned to look into Leif’s shielded, average-man face, his jaw falling slowly.  
As Leif sat down, he leaned back onto the headstone of the anonymous, long-dead dwarf behind him. “I told you: I’ve been around a while.”  
Freor looked back to the grave, his mind whirling.  
Leif said quietly, “Haven’t seen you for weeks. How have you been?”  
Freor stared at the headstone. “Your husband.”  
Leif nodded.  
“A dwarf.”  
He nodded again, eyes still shut, head still resting lazily against the stone behind him.  
Freor sat down too, crossing his legs beneath him. “You’re telling me dwarves used to marry elves?”  
“Only very rarely. Most didn’t. I still don’t know how I got so lucky.”

Freor stared some more. “I’ve never seen tengwar on a dwarf grave before. What does it say?”  
“ _Forever._ ”  
Freor shook his head. “Mahal.”  
“I’m sorry?”  
“ _Forever_. It seems...” _How do I put this?_ “I don’t know. Is that an elf thing?”  
“I beg your pardon?”  
“I mean, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but what’s the point in being romantic about someone who’s dead?”

Leif sat up, exhaling, and opened his eyes. He leaned forward and plucked the ring from its place on the grave. “It’s not sentiment. I still love him. If I haven’t stopped after all this time I’m not going to.”

It was at that moment that it first occurred to Freor to curse his god. And why not Leif’s, too, while he was at it? Mahal and Varda and Eru for that matter and the goddamn day he was born, and this idiot elf, and his idiot self most of all. He sank a little lower into the ground. “Marriage beyond death,” he said quietly, and Leif nodded. It was a romantic cliché. One of those phrases that got tossed around in poetry and popular song that nobody really believed in. Not these days, anyway. Leif obviously did. 

And that was it. It was over before he’d even begun. _Permanently bachelored at 40_ , which, he knew, was yet another ridiculous thing to think. Somehow he knew he’d been expecting it, but not so soon. Not today. It shouldn’t have happened for another ten years, at the absolute earliest. And not laid out so plainly. He felt numb. The crushing heartbreak must come later. There’d be plenty of time for that to sink in. Plennnnty. He thought about asking Hildis if he could join her in the Grey Mountains when the term was over, or after graduation. Mines need cooks, lots of them. He could be happy there, with his sister and new friends and a good job, away from the Kingdom and Dale and everything that would remind him of… And over time Leif would just fade into the background that was his misspent youth, mostly forgotten.

But as bad as it felt, he knew he couldn’t begin to imagine how much worse it had to be for Hervenn, missing the one he loved most, on and on into eternity. Freor curled up into himself, pulling his knees up to his chin. He tried to face the elf, but Leif was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. The pale line he cut on the dark floor reminded Freor of some narrow band of shining metal newly released from its mold: Silver, fresh from the fire, singularly bright against the smoke and grime of the forge. “That’s why you knew the Durin’s Day hymns.”  
“Hm. Yes. The words have changed some over time but the melodies are the same.”  
“You’ve been alone since ten seventy-two. And always will be.”

Leif was silent for a minute, during which time he slipped the bluestone ring slowly onto the third finger of his left hand, then retrieved three pinkish pebbles from the grave and juggled them for a few rotations before replacing them, and then somehow made a small sphere of white light appear and balance on the end of his index finger. It was kinetic non sequitur, and Freor could only stare in bewilderment. Then Leif said, with his characteristic calm, “No, and I hope not.”

 _What?_ Freor had lost the thread of the conversation. “What?”  
“No, I haven’t been alone since Buri died, and if I’m lucky, I won’t be forever.”  
Freor watched the sphere of light roll over the back of the elf’s hand to his wrist, then around and through his fingers, then up to his elbow to perch, then back down into his palm where he closed his fist and it popped like a soap bubble. Freor wiped at his eyes with one hand. “So does that mean… elves are like men?”  
“In some ways. How do you mean?”  
“You married others? You could again?”  
“Oh. That’s one of the complicated questions. Suffice to say that, given the right circumstances, the right person, yes. I hope I do. And I’m sorry I’ve upset you again, but if you keep asking me about the sad things in my past there’s a good chance I’ll keep giving you sad answers.”

Freor felt like he could have laughed had he not been a wreck so very recently. That wasn’t a sad answer, it was hope. A weird, sputtering kind of hope that he wasn’t sure was better than none at all, but it felt a lot less like an end than the certainty of a life without him had. He came close to confessing his fascination right then and there, but was painfully aware of how nonsensical it would sound. He tried to imagine how he’d react if a child of twenty said something similar to Freor himself. He liked to think he’d be sensitive enough to the kid’s feelings not to laugh. His eyes ran over the little things on Buri’s grave. “Were all these his? The jar and the… what is this?” He held up a little stone figure that looked like a strange fish.  
“A dolphin.”  
“I thought dolphins had a, you know, what’s it called-“ Freor made a motion behind his back with one hand.  
“Dorsal fin. It used to. Broke off a long time ago. Yes, mostly they were his. Ours.”  
Freor nodded and replaced the figure. “I’ve been crazy busy, actually, since you asked. College takes a lot of time. I mean, of course I knew that going in, but I didn’t really understand how much it would affect the rest of my life.”  
“It’s all right. I know, I’ve been there.”  
Freor nodded and stood, keeping his eyes on the floor. “Thanks. Okay, I think I should leave you and Buri alone now.”  
“You’re welcome to stay.”  
“Thanks, but it’s a family day, you know?” Freor’s face fell and he covered his mouth. “Oh. Damn. I’m sorry.”  
Leif just smiled. “It’s okay, really. I’m used to it.”  
“Would you like to come be with us?”  
“You are unfailingly kind, Freor, thank you. But no, it’s time I gave Buri a piece of my mind. The rat still owes me fifty guilders.”  
Freor did manage to laugh that time, in surprise and gratitude that Leif could find a joke in this emotional morass of a conversation. “Okay. I’ll see you.”  
“You’d better.”  
He nodded- half smiling- said goodbye, and left. 

_He’s not it, he can’t be. I know that. So a demi-god out of the elder days strolled into my life, so what? Of course I’m dazzled, who wouldn’t be? But that’s all it is. He’s just a person, just my teacher, just a friend. And I’m just a student, just a kid, just a friend. It’s a crush. It’ll go away. It will. And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll find someone I’m really meant to be with._

* * *

“I was about to make coffee. You want some?”  
Hildis stood at the kitchen sink up to her forearms in suds. “Sure.”  
Freor measured out two portions of beans, plopped them in the grinder, and began turning the handle. “You ever have a crush on one of your teachers?”  
“What?”  
“Didn’t you have Elinsdottir for metallurgy? You seemed to like her.”  
“Yeah, she was good. Knew her stuff, and she was nice. Didn’t have a crush on her though. Why, did you?”  
“No.”  
“Why do you ask?”  
“Just curious. Anybody else?”  
“Bergstrom, if you must know. And if you tell anyone I’ll shave you while you sleep.”  
“Bergstrom?” Freor started to laugh. “Seriously? Why?”  
“Shut up. I was seventeen.”  
Freor composed himself. Mostly. “I’m sorry, that was mean. Bergstrom, okay.”  
She flung a handful of soap suds at him and hit him square in the chest, which just made Freor laugh again. “What, Freor? What do you care? Who did you like?”  
“Nobody.”  
“Yeah, right. Come on, I told you.”  
“Nobody. Did you ever tell Bergstrom?”  
“God no. Why would I do that?”  
Freor scooped the suds from his shirt and plopped them back in the sink, then lined the coffee strainer with a filter, clicked it into the reservoir, and funnelled in the drawer of fresh grounds. “I dunno, maybe you wanted him to know? Sometimes people do.”  
“No thanks. Not my style.” She rinsed four dinner plates and set them in the rack to dry. He slowly squeezed the hot water through the filter. She turned suddenly to look at her brother, who was scraping foam off the bottom of the strainer. “Oh,” she said.  
Freor looked up, startled by her tone. “Oh?”  
“Holy father of... are you serious?”  
“What?”  
“That’s what’s wrong with you? Good lord, no wonder you’ve been acting weird.”  
“I have not.”  
“How can you- “ She stared at him. He stared back. “Well aside from the fact that you’re forty, he’s a _man_. You can’t-” She raised both hands in a gesture of astonished frustration.  
Freor topped their mugs up with hot water and set one down on the counter next to the sink, looking dejected. He sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”  
She watched him sip his coffee, then placed a handful of clean silverware in the basket and rinsed her hands. "Wow." She drained the sink. “I don’t think I can imagine how that must be. How long have you felt like this?”  
“I don’t know. A few months.”  
“So you’ve been avoiding him.”  
“Of course.”  
“Of course. Hell, I sure would be.”  
“Do you think I could get a job in Drinsburg?”  
“Huh?”  
“I mean with only a year of college?”  
“Oh. Well yeah, sure. It’s not like you want to teach culinary, right? Just cook?”  
“Right.”  
“Plenty of restaurants, not to mention the mine canteens. Why, you planning to invade my territory?”  
“I’ve been thinking about it. Would you mind?”  
She smiled. “Nope. Hasn’t been the same without you. You told Mom?”  
“Had to ask you first, didn’t I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The description of coffee-making is based on a manual bean-grinder and an aeropress.  
> 2\. If Adina can give Thrain an Aunt Beru (in _Back to the Beginning_ ), I can give Hildis a [Mr. Bergstrom, in honor of Lisa Simpson.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hlRyZciwbc)


	16. Unmistakable Dwarvish Make

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem “Exile” was written by Hart Crane, ca. 1922.

F.A. 2062, July. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

Freor was sitting at a long table in the library reading about Haradrish funeral feasts. There were three other students sharing the table with him, each with a few books and papers and, in a couple cases, a discreetly concealed snack. When the student just across from him stretched and yawned and walked away his eyes wandered over her study materials. _Sundered from the Sea. The Stonefoot Epics. Havens._ And at the bottom of the pile, _Songs of the Eldar East of the Sea_. There was also a small stack of paper affixed with a clip and marked in several places with red correcting ink. Freor picked it up and read the title: _Death Metaphors Across Poetic Traditions: Dwarvish, Mannish, and Elvish Conceptions of the Halls of Mandos._ He replaced the paper, but pulled _Songs of the Eldar_ from the pile and opened it. It was discouragingly thick, but on closer inspection he discovered that over half of the bulk was the original Elvish text and copious annotations. The Westron translation part was far less daunting. He scanned the table of contents reading the attributions. There were a few familiar names (though he couldn’t place them)- Silmariel, Elrond, Cirdan- but most were unknown to him. He flipped through the pages idly, reading a stanza here and there. Most of the poems were quite long and- if he was being honest- florid. The rare times he happened on a short one he read it through. Near the back he found one he both loved and hated. It wound tight fingers around his heart and squeezed. It reminded him of Leif, or more specifically of Leif and Buri. It was by someone named Arwen, and went like this:

_Exile_  
  
 _My hands have not touched pleasure since your hands,--_  
 _No,-- nor my lips freed laughter since 'farewell',_  
 _And with the day, distance again expands_  
 _Voiceless between us, as an uncoiled shell._

_Yet love endures, though starving and alone._  
 _A dove's wings cling about my heart each night_  
 _With surging gentleness, and the blue stone_  
 _Set in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright._

  


“Is that my book?”  
Freor’s eyes snapped up. “What?”  
“I was using that.”  
“Oh, sorry.” He closed it and handed it back to her. “I’m… Sorry, I was just curious.”  
She nodded toward the text lying at his elbow, temporarily forgotten. “No problem. What are you reading?”  
He held it up so she could see the title. “Apparently they roast a whole goat when someone dies.”  
“Huh. Do they roast a whole person when a goat dies?”  
“No, when a goat dies they roast potatoes and beets and serve them up with garlic butter. It’s the glorious circle of life.”  
She laughed, and then stopped suddenly, looking over her shoulder, remembering they were in a library. “I take it you’re doing culinary?”  
“Yeah. Classics?”  
“Comparative lit. I have to re-write this damn paper by tomorrow.”  
“Bummer. Good luck.”  
“Thanks.”  
She returned to her work. Freor tried to concentrate on the tea-boiled eggs and votive tables, but he’d filled his head with too much Elvish poetry. He hadn’t consciously memorized _Exile_ , but pieces of it kept coming back to him. After half an hour he gave up on the Haradrim, went to the card catalog to see where _Songs of the Eldar_ was shelved, checked out the last copy, and went home.

* * *

Legolas hadn’t seen or heard from Freor since Ancestors’ Day, and was surprised to find a package from him in his mailbox. Inside it were two envelopes and a small packet of something wrapped in wax paper and tied with string. The first envelope contained a note:

_"Leif- I’m doing pastry over the summer and this week is molded marzipan- like for cakes. Our assignment was to do a half dozen different kinds of realistic plant parts: leaves, fruit, flowers, etc. Had some leftovers. Thought of you. –Freor."_

Legolas untied the string and opened the paper, amused by the idea of dwarves choosing to fashion sweets in the shapes of plants. Inside were four tiny, perfect works of confectionery art: a maple leaf, an acorn with cap, a strawberry, and a pale gold, green-veined leaf of a mallorn tree. There hadn’t been mallorn within a hundred leagues of Dale for centuries. It was extremely unlikely Freor had ever seen one, except maybe in a book or painting. Legolas wondered what dreams might have come to haunt the lad at night. The second envelope contained a very formal, beautifully-lettered invitation to Freor’s 41st birthday party in August. Legolas chuckled at the contrast between the style of the invitation and the casual nature of the occasion, advertised as _Drinks at the Mason’s Arms, Dale, Thursday, 12th August, 2062. No gifts._ Written across the bottom in Freor’s hand was: “Mom’s taken up calligraphy. She wanted some practice so I let her do my invitations. Thursday’s your regular night, right?”


	17. By Stone and Steel, by Mithril and Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I have no idea how long it actually takes to walk from Dale's north end to the Kingdom under the Mountain. I thought it better not to be specific. I don't think I've contradicted anything Tolkien said about the distance, but please let me know if you find that I have. I also don't know how long it would take letters (or people or caravans) to travel between Dale and Drinsburg (which, obviously, I invented, and chose not to locate any more specifically than “in the Grey Mountains”), so I picked three weeks just because it seemed plausible and was convenient.
> 
> 2\. “Sick goose” is a joke about Uilleann pipes.

F.A. 2062, August 12th. Dale.

A thin haze of pipe smoke clouded The Mason’s Arms. Canted bookshelves stuffed with musty paperbacks and boardgames lined the walls above cracked-leather booths. Men and women carrying sloshing glasses and steaming bowls weaved among tables pocked and shiny from generations of elbows. And through and around the crowd pulsed the energetically melancholy lilt of The Stumbling Swans. Between the second-to and last songs of their first set, their concertina-pulling frontwoman introduced the band in a perfunctory way. “Evening, folks, and welcome. Tonight we have Gus on whistle and Astrid on harp, Tarn’s keeping time but can be persuaded to sell it (talk to me after), Ohul on mandolin, Walda on sick goose, and Leif’s fiddling again since we can’t seem to stop him. I’m Frith and we’re the Stumbling Swans, delighted as always to be here at The Mason’s Arms. Denny has asked me to remind everyone that the winning team on quiz Mondays is entitled to one free pint per member, and all LongLake ciders are on special this month. We’re gonna play one more and then take a short break, but we’ll be back to assault your delicate sensibilities in due course. This is something our own dear Astrid wrote last week. It’s called _Song_."

A few dwarves in a Dale pub aren’t unusual, but they’re certainly noticeable, and Freor and his friends sat near enough the front that Leif had an easy view. When the band finished _Song_ and his bandmates dispersed for drink or talk or the restroom, Leif set his fiddle down and went to greet the birthday party. Sindri was among them, and Freor’s friends Nond and Oinir whom Leif had met before, and three others he didn’t recognize. He shook many hands, and Freor introduced him to his schoolmates Vigdis, and Frali and Farin, who were twins.

Freor indicated the empty seat next to him and Leif took it. At first they all tried to talk as a group, but soon the noise forced them into smaller conversational twos and threes, which suited Freor’s purpose. He didn’t want people overhearing the conversation he was dreading, but nonetheless wanted to have it in a public place. He hated the thought of what he might say or do without the social pressure of a crowded room. He knew he couldn’t have faced Leif’s rejection were it just the two of them alone. It would feel too significant, and he was determined this be no more than small talk. A casual farewell to a friend. And it was, at first. It felt good to speak with him again after months of nothing. Good and familiar and... painful. And he knew Leif would soon leave to rejoin the band, so he gathered all his courage and jumped in. “So... there’s something else. I think I probably shouldn’t tell you and don’t really know why I am, I just... Oh, this is stupid.”  
“What is?”  
“Okay. I could stay at school for another year or three, but I got my basic cert at the end of summer quarter which qualifies me for entry-level. So I’m going to the Grey Mountains to live with Hildis.”  
Leif set his beer glass down on the table slowly and deliberately. “You’re leaving?”  
Freor nodded. “I miss her, and the job market’s glutted here. And I could use a change of scenery.”  
“When will you be back?”  
“I don’t know. I mean I’ll come back for holidays and such, of course, but maybe I’ll just stay. I’m pretty sure I’m one of those married-to-the-work types, so...”  
“Bit early to decide that, isn’t it? Never know what might happen. Give yourself time.”  
Freor snorted. “Yes. Well, that’s the thing. That would be the mature, adult thing to do. Which is the problem. That’s why I’m going. But that’s not... the point.”  
Freor had lowered his voice a bit and Leif leaned closer to hear him. “What is it?”  
“It’s nothing. I apologize in advance and once it’s out there I want you to just forget I ever said it, all right?”  
“Depends.”  
“It’s really nothing. I have this little... schoolboy crush on you, that’s all.”  
“You- ”  
“I know, I know, last thing you wanted to hear. So anyway I’m here tonight to say goodbye. This is my send-off party.”  
Leif’s expression was unreadable. “Freor... is that it? Is that why you’ve barely said ‘hello’ since April?”  
Freor looked down at his beer. He couldn’t meet the elf’s eyes. “No, I’ve just been busy.”  
Leif said, barely loud enough that Freor could hear, “I never know where to begin.”  
“You don’t need to say anything. It’s not important.” Freor drank from his glass, hiding behind it. He didn’t want to look at his companion, but his peripheral vision told him something had changed, and when he glanced up he was astonished to discover the shield gone. There Leif sat in all his otherworldly glory, surrounded by people in a crowded pub in the middle of Dale. Anyone who happened to turn their direction would see, see that this one among them was not like themselves, not nearly. Any one of them with enough imagination could surmise the truth. _Elf?_ would spread through the crowd like wildfire. _There, look! Elf?!_ Leif raised a hand and held Freor’s jaw gently, pinning the dwarf’s eyes with his own. His gaze was quite unsettling. His unmasked eyes seemed to pierce directly into Freor’s soul and instantly know all they saw there. Which was scary. And comforting.

 _Dammit Gimli, must you do this to him now? He’s still a child. I should have stayed away, I know I should have... But you were in so much pain when Fror died. And now you’re beginning to wake, long before he’s ready. And in the wrong order, too. You will make me let you go. AGAIN. And I’ll do it for his sake. You damn well better Remember this time._ “It’s all right, Freor. You needn’t be embarrassed, it certainly doesn’t bother me. And yes, go be with your sister. She probably misses you even more than you do her. But... write to me. And I hope you come back soon.” And the shield went up, and the hand down, and in eight seconds Leif was back with his band, tuning his fiddle for the next set.

  


They played five more songs, but Freor barely heard them. Frali, Farin, Sindri and Vigdis left during the third and he couldn’t blame them- it was a long walk back to the Kingdom. At the end of the set Leif looked over in Freor’s direction for the first time since they’d resumed playing. When Freor met his gaze Leif shut his eyes quickly, then turned and went about the business of packing away his fiddle and flute and loading them in his bag. He said goodnight to the Swans, then came over to the birthday table. Freor said, “We’re heading back north. Want to walk with us?” 

It was a typical Rhovanion August, and though the sun had been down for hours, the day’s heat had not abated. Nond and Oinir were a little drunk, but Freor didn’t seem much affected. The four of them talked and laughed as they walked, and when they reached Leif’s turning Freor said to his friends, “I’m going to walk Leif home. I’ll see you boys Monday.” Nond and Oinir waved their goodbyes, and Freor and Leif went west toward Leif’s house.  
  
“When are you going?”  
“The caravan leaves Tuesday. If I’m not in it the next one’s in a month.”  
Leif nodded and they walked on in silence. 

Only after they had ascended the stairs to Leif’s porch did the elf say, “Will you do something for me when you get there? Two things, actually.”  
“What?”  
“Thank Hildis for me. And will you send me your address? If I need to move I’d like to be able to write and tell you where.”  
Freor nodded. “Yeah, sure. I suppose you’ve lived there yourself, eh?”  
“Mm. It was some time ago, though.”  
“Got any advice?”  
“Advice?”  
“You know- things I should see, places to avoid, local customs to be aware of so my foot doesn’t get wedged too far in my mouth?”  
Leif laid a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye again, though not with the intensity he had in the pub. “My advice is to remember that you’re free. You get to choose your future, and keep choosing it every day, and nothing you did yesterday or a year ago or twenty years ago needs to dictate what you do today or tomorrow or twenty years in the future. You and your wants and dreams will grow and change over time, and nothing is necessarily permanent. You’re free.” Freor blinked up at him. Leif squeezed his shoulder. “If I don’t see you again before Tuesday, have a safe journey. I’ll miss you.”  
  
Freor stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Leif tightly. He wanted to say “I’ll miss you so much,” but knew if he opened his mouth he’d just cry. He felt the elf lay one arm around the back of his shoulders and the other hand on his head, holding him to his middle. Freor breathed in, and the smell of warm bread transported him back to the first time Leif had hugged him: at his father’s funeral. Back before he knew Leif was an elf. Back before he knew anything. And later, too: when the name “Hervenn” wouldn’t let him rest until he’d shared it. He held the elf as long as he dared, then slipped out of his arms, said “Bye, Leif” without looking up, and was on the stairs in two seconds. Behind him he heard, “Okay, I’ll see you.” He did not stop or look back, but said “You’d better” loud enough for the elf to hear.

_He’s not it. Demi-god, dazzled, just a person/teacher/friend blah blah blah. It’ll go away. New people, new place, new friends, new life. It’ll go away. It will._


	18. With the Occasional Hiccup

F.A. 2062, October 20th. Dale.

_29 Sept '62_  
 _Freor Frorsson_  
 _72 NE 8th Ave_  
 _Drinsburg 0121-08_  
 _Grey Mountains_

 _Leif,_  
 _Where to begin? It doesn’t feel like home yet, but I couldn’t expect it to after only a month. A friend of Hild’s was moving to a bigger house and she managed to snag his 2BR. No view or anything, but the kitchen’s big, the water’s hot, and it’s only a 30-minute walk to work, so I’m not complaining. And there’s an apple tree out back that’s got fruit at the moment. I thought of sending you some, but the ones in your own garden are better so there didn’t seem much point._

_Obviously I knew that moving to a place where I only know one person would be an adjustment, but I find myself even more grateful than I anticipated for the trail that Hildis blazed. She’s made some very good friends here and they’ve taken me in like I’m one of their own. One of them (Bengt) is in a band and we got to talking music and tossed around the idea of me playing with them sometime, which I’ll definitely try out. Other than you, I haven’t really played with other people since I quit the school orchestra._

_So yeah, I found a cooking job without much trouble. It’s just grunt work now, but that’s where one starts, eh? It’s fine and I won’t be doing it forever. Haven’t found much in the way of common ground with the chef yet, but I’m not worried. He seems nice enough, just always busy. I’m still not fully unpacked so I haven’t had a chance to do any real exploring, but everyone’s been all “You haven’t gone yet? Oh, do!” So I have a list to choose from when I finally find a free day. :) Autumn does seem to be drawing in sooner here than it did at home, but they tell me it rarely snows before Durin’s Day, so I’ve got some time. I have noticed different kinds of rocks here from the ones at home, and birds. I’d like to get a better look at them._

_So... you remember the nightmare that drove me a little nuts for a while? I had it again. It changed, though. Again. This time it wasn’t really a nightmare, just a dream. Inside it I was still horrified that I was using your “name”, but eventually I found you by the river again, and when I turned to look behind me the crowd was gone, but when I turned back again you were still there. But then I realized you were a dwarf. It was still you, but you were a dwarf. I can’t explain it. But it didn’t make me crazy after I woke up like they used to, so that’s good._

_I won’t be coming home for Yule this year since I haven’t saved up enough holiday time to make the trip. Hild and I are planning a potluck with some other transplants. I’ll let you know how it goes. You have Yule plans? And how are you otherwise? How’s the band? Students? Your garden? I can’t believe it was only two years ago that we’d just started tin whistle lessons._  
 _-Freor_

* * *

F.A. 2446, November 23rd. Drinsburg.

_1 November ‘62_  
 _Leif Green_  
 _44 Pine Rd. N_  
 _Dale 8255_

_Freor,_  
 _I’m so glad things are going well for you. How was your Durin’s Day? Your mother very kindly invited me for the party this year. It wasn’t the same without you- Sindri won all the games, of course. Did you manage to get out hiking before the snow? Had any band practices yet? Speaking of: the Swans (mostly Walda, truth be told) decided we should have a wassail party for Yule this year, and since I’ve got the closest thing any of us has to an apple orchard, guess who’s hosting. I’m glad I have a couple months to plan. Ohul’s youngest is seven so they’ll be the Queen and Tomtit. And there will probably be neighborhood caroling, too. Do the neighbors really want to be sung to? I suppose they have no choice in the matter. Besides, we’ll bring biscuits. No one can resist carolers with biscuits._

_You once (okay, more than once) asked me why I left Valinor and I couldn’t answer. I think it’s time I tried. You’re welcome to treat it like any other legend- one that began as a family story about someone’s grandfather but has been embellished and changed so much over the generations that now even the tiny kernel of historical fact is obscured. If you couldn’t believe that I spoke with Mahal, then you’re even less likely to believe this tale. Does anyone believe, after all, that story about a war of the valar so enormous that the whole western part of the continent crumbled into the sea? Of course not, it’s impossible. That’s just... entertainment._

_I know you learned in school a few things about the War of the Ring at the end of the Third Age, but that’s ancient history now and I don’t expect you to know many details, if any. The short version of my involvement is that I (and a wizard, two men, four hobbits, and a dwarf) volunteered to take Sauron’s ring of power to Mount Doom to throw it in the volcano, which seemed our best chance of defeating him. It was a long journey, and almost none of it went as we’d planned, but something happened to me along the way- something strange, unexpected, significant, and irrelevant to the business at hand: The dwarf and I became the best of friends. His name was Gimli. It happened so fast. When we met in October we disliked one another, and two months of traveling together did little to change that, but in January one of our company fell and we stopped to grieve and recuperate for several days. In that time, he and I started talking. And didn't stop. And then we ran into a band of orcs and another of our company died, and two others were captured, and another two headed off on their own for Mordor... Anyway. This was supposed to be the short version, so: by the middle of March I’d fallen in love with him._

_After the war we lived many years in Middle-earth. When he’d grown old we sailed for Valinor, and lived there together for many more. But dwarves are mortal and must die eventually, even there. I couldn’t bear the thought. So I begged Mahal for his life. And, of course, The Maker said the same thing everyone else had: Dwarves are mortal; Gimli will die._

 _Valinor is paradise for most people, but not me. Not without him._  
 _-Leif_


	19. My Sight Much Diminished

F.A. 2062, December 24th. Dale.

_2 Dec '62_  
 _Freor Frorsson_  
 _72 NE 8th Ave_  
 _Drinsburg 0121-08_  
 _Grey Mountains_

 _Leif,_  
 _Yeah, you’re right: I_ can’t _believe that story. Not as stated, anyway. You said you’d rather I thought you mad than lying to me (and believe me, the “mad” option is tempting), but I think it’s neither of those. You have a habit of only telling me part of a story, and then telling a little more of it later, and a little more later, and the rest- the whole truth- much later. In fact I doubt I know the whole truth of anything about you. Even on it’s own terms that story doesn’t make sense: Even if Valinor is (or was) real, dwarves never went there. It was just for elves. And even if this Gimli had, and the two of you lived there together, wouldn’t Valinor be a far better balm for grief than Middle-earth? I get why- once he died- you’d want to leave a place where you’d lived together, but you lived together in Middle Earth, too, so why bother? Or is it just that you’re a dwarrowphile and there weren’t any other dwarves in Valinor? I mean I guess it worked out- you’d never have found Buri if you’d stayed there, eh? ‘One elf still who haunts dwarvish lands’ indeed. You are Longseeker and you know it. You knew it when I asked you about it, and pretended you didn’t. So go on- tell me the rest. I doubt I’ll believe any of that either, but you don’t seem to care._

_My Durin’s Day was good, since you asked. I had to work, but not until the afternoon so I got caught up on sleep and dishes and laundry and reading beforehand. Reading for fun still feels like such a luxury after a year in college when everything I read was for school. I’m trying to get through that “Songs of the Eldar” that you like so much, but it’s pretty opaque. There’s so much cultural stuff that’s completely over my head. So many names and no context. And what is it with elves and stars? I don’t get it._

_But I did get out hiking before the snow came, yes. In fact it hasn’t snowed yet. There are still drifts of maple and birch leaves all over the ground and I’m finding it impossible not to kick through them on my walk to work. The things one misses growing up under a mountain. Now I get why mannish kids do it. And I did check out Bengt’s band and played with them a little, but I don’t think their music is quite what I want to spend my time playing. So I’m still looking. And incidentally, Hild’s started drawing again, which she hasn’t done for quite a while. (She says I’m such a good housemate that she feels like she has more time to do fun stuff for herself.) She did one that I both love and hate. It’s how she thinks Dad would look now, if he were still alive. Not much older than he was, of course, but sort of a cross between Dad five years ago and grandpa when we were little. She stuck it up in the living room over the couch. It breaks my heart and every day I think of asking her to take it down, but I haven’t yet._  
 _-Freor_

_ps. I expect exhaustively detailed descriptions of Ohul and Malte and your apple trees and the bowl and the beer and the toast and everything else about your wassail party, so take notes._

* * *

That night Freor dreamed about Leif again, but this time it was different. No crowd, no fear, no river, no secret name. And the strangest thing about it was that it didn’t feel the slightest bit strange. It actually felt less like a dream than like performing in some outdoor stage-play, only it wasn’t fiction.

_He was in a tree, or more probably on a ladder next to a tree, and surrounded by glossy green leaves and fat, pinky-yellow globes of ripe fruit. The sun was hot on his back, and he felt sweat bead in his hair under a broad-brimmed hat. He could hear the gentle drone of bees, though none were near enough to be bothersome, and the warm air hung around him soft and thick with the smell of peaches. He was picking the ripest and placing them gently in a shallow basket. Someone off to his left was whistling. He looked over and saw Leif, also on a ladder, also with a basket of peaches, but- at the moment Freor looked over- juggling instead of harvesting them. His long hair was pulled into a ponytail at the back of his head, and he tossed the peaches so lightly that they did not squish or bruise. Freor felt the familiar twin twinges of pride and envy at the elf’s dexterity. He watched for a little while, and then said,_  
 _“You know what I’m thinkin’?”_  
 _Leif continued to juggle. “How many guesses do I get?”_  
 _“I’ll be all traditional and say ‘three’.”_  
 _“Hm. What could Nain be thinking in the middle of a sunny afternoon?” One of the bouncing trio broke away from its fellows and came flying through the air toward him. He caught it one-handed and placed it in the basket. “I know- cider.”_  
 _“Close. Guess again.”_  
 _“Sex?”_  
 _“HA! Good, but wrong.”_  
 _Another peach came at him. This one he missed and it thudded to the ground a yard behind him. The elf was down to one now, so he couldn’t really be said to be juggling anymore so much as just gently tossing a peach up and down.“You sure it’s not sex?”_  
 _“Is that your third guess?”_  
 _Leif tossed the last peach at him, jumped down from the ladder, and called out in a sing-song as he scampered up the slope toward the green door in the hill, “Then it can only be LUNCHTIME!”_  
 _Freor climbed down his own ladder and called after him, laughing, “You read my mind!”_


	20. A Garden as Men Make

F.A. 2063, January 25th. Drinsburg.

_3 January '63_  
_Leif Green_  
_44 Pine Road N_  
_Dale 8255_

 _Freor,_  
_Correct on all counts, except the assertion that dwarves never went to Valinor. I thought so too, until the Lords of the West welcomed Gimli there for my sake. Elves have a concept of “elf-friend” just as dwarves have “dwarf-friend”, and Gimli had spent more than a century proving himself friend to the elves time and again. Especially me. I don’t know that he was the only dwarf who’s ever been there, but I never met another._

_...So I begged Mahal for his life, and of course The Maker said the same thing everyone else had: dwarves are mortal, Gimli will die. But then he said something else, too: though he could not prevent Gimli’s death, Mahal could give him the Choice of Durin: to be re-embodied, if he wished. Reborn into a new life. I had no way of knowing if Gimli would choose to come back, once he was in Mandos' peaceful halls, but I knew I could never rest in Valinor if there was a chance he might be alive somewhere in Middle-earth. So Mahal sent me back over the sea._

_Longseeker indeed. I did know it was about me, yes, though I was very surprised to find that the nickname has survived in The Kingdom even unto today, since I’d been away for such a long time._

_I only managed to take a few notes about the party for you, but I think I remember it pretty well even without. In fact I’m still not done cleaning the house. Musicians are a boisterous lot, and they brought their families and friends. Malte was so pleased with his Tomtit costume (and his mother’s queen) that he convinced Mads and Ohurin to dress up too, and the family enlisted Frith and Walda to provide music and four of their other friends to help them choreograph a square dance, all before the party night, and without my knowledge. So we’re all out in the back garden with the wassail bowl and, right after the tree blessing, Ohul (ever the performer) raises her voice and says, “And now, If you’ll all make a circle around the edge of the garden, we’d like to teach you the Ohlsdottir Wassail Reel,” and Frith and Walda appear on the back porch with their instruments and start playing, and the rest of us looked at one another with eyebrows raised and moved to the edges, and the eight dancers square up in the middle and launch into it. And after the demonstration round Frith says “Square up! Everybody this time!” and calls the steps. And we all fell in and did it. It was the sort of thing you see happen in a play and scoff at. “Oh, sure. Nobody does that in real life.” Apparently my friends do. My amazing friends. I wish you could have joined us. You’d’ve loved it. And I fully expect them to commandeer my house for a wassail party again next year whether I agree to it or not. And since you asked, the bowl was a maple one that Mads’ grandfather carved, the beer was Summit’s winter brew, and there were three kinds of toast. That morning I’d baked some wheat levain and a couple loaves of that buckwheat-pear one you like, and Tarn brought some rye. We also convinced Astrid to sing a solo rendition of “Song”, but only after we got her drunk. And, happy news: Frith brought her fiancee along. I hadn’t even known she’d met someone. The wedding’s in July._  
_-Leif_


	21. Child of Mirkwood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big chunk of text near the end is lifted from Adina's [Kaleidoscope](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829538), only it's re-told from Gimli's POV. Or rather from Freor's, since naturally his dreams are from his own perspective, and, just as naturally, he labels the person who appears to be Leif as "Leif".

F.A. 2063, March 1st. Dale.

_6 Feb '63_  
_Freor Frorsson_  
_72 NE 8th Ave_  
_Drinsburg 0121-08_  
__

_Leif,_  
_My Yule couldn’t hold a candle to yours, but it was still fun. Ombur from the restaurant and some of Hild’s friends from the mines came over and we cooked and ate and drank and played a couple rounds of Settlers of Haradwaith. I made an apple-hazelnut tart with the apples you sent and it was a big hit. Everyone said to say thank you. Thank you._

_We’re having an unusually cold winter here (so Hildis says) and there’s a good deal of snow at the moment. Going to and from work and on errands is fine because I keep moving, but it’s too cold at home at night. We've both been squeezing into her bed to stay warm while we sleep. It helps, but it’s crowded. We’re mystified that people who live this high up in the mountains choose to live in surface houses rather than underground. The locals seem to be accustomed to it, though. They tease us for being “soft southerners”. Sometimes I miss home. I miss Mom and Sindri, you, Oinir, Nond... just being in the Kingdom. I suppose that’s just winter talking and come spring I’ll like Drinsburg again. People tell me it’s really very pretty when things turn green. Right now it’s just endless white with some exciting splashes of brown. Thank Mahal the days are getting longer again, at least. Hild’s coping by drawing a lot. She did a nice one of Sindri at Mom’s anvil in the workshop, and another of the south facade of the Kingdom armory- the one with all the statues carved into it. I’m not sure how I’m coping. Maybe I’ll get a cat. Oh- food experiments. Yeah, big surprise, I know. The lake’s frozen over at the moment, but when it isn’t it’s full of a small, white-fleshed fish that’s delicious fresh. Thing is, the local preserving traditions rely heavily on vinegar, lye, or both, so I’ve been trying to find ways to make the “local delicacy” more palatable. Salt, black pepper, and dried cranberry have been the clear winners so far. Also liberal additions of fried potatoes and leeks. And I’ve investigated a few more music groups but haven’t found a good fit yet._

_So... I don’t know quite how to ask this. I’m kind of afraid of the answer. The Longseeker title- is it because you’ve been searching for your reincarnated Gimli all this time? I’m absolutely certain there’s nothing I can say to you on the matter that hasn’t already occurred to you a million times, but... wouldn’t he have, you know, done it by now? If he were going to? Or is that who Buri was?_

_Is it spring there yet? Please tell me all about it._  
_-Freor_

* * *

F.A. 2063, February 25th. Drinsburg.

Freor continued to have the ever-changing Hervenn dream, but apart from his brief mention of one to Leif in September, he kept them to himself. Them and all the other bad dreams. They came on slowly, at first. He knew he’d had one shortly after he moved because of how disoriented he’d felt when he woke to find himself not in his familiar bed in the Kingdom. And another when he finally slept after his long, overnight shift on Durin’s Day, another on the morning after he received Leif’s letter in late November, and another on 2nd Yule because he woke hungover. But recently they’d sped up, and for the past month he’d dreamt something frightening or sad or painful every few days. They were vague things, and usually short, but unpleasant. Often violent. Battles, natural disasters- running from a giant monster, hundreds lying on a battlefield screaming, children caught in a landslide, a horde of ghosts chasing an army. Some of them repeated and there were two he’d had three times already. He never recognized anyone in these dreams except Leif, and even Leif was only there in maybe a third of them. Probably less. Though there was a difficult one where his brain forced him to watch the elf weep beside a gravestone for what seemed like hours. After that one Freor’s stomach hurt for two days. The only bright spot had been that dream in the orchard back in December. Other than that he never seemed to have any good dreams anymore, or even neutral ones. He found himself putting off bedtime ‘til later and later. He wasn’t getting enough sleep, and grew irritable. Hildis noticed.

* * *

_The path before them seemed to disappear in a great, black smudge. Leif, just to his left, stopped and strung his bow. Freor gripped his axe in both hands, holding it at the ready. “The spiders' lair lies across the path," Leif said quietly. "We dare not leave the path to circle around them."_

_"So we go through them.” Freor replied._

_Leif nodded. "We must creep as close as we can without notice. When they spot us I shall make as bright a light as I can manage and we will fight our way through."_

_Freor stepped forward and said, "Keep behind me." He held up a hand before Leif could protest. "You can do more with that bow of yours than knives. I will keep the creatures from mobbing you as you fire."_

_"Your tactics are sound, Master Dwarf," he replied, pulling Arod's head down and whispering something in his ear. "Let us go."_

_They had nearly reached the net of web encircling the lair before they were spotted. Leif had already put arrow to string and shot fast and sure, but not before the spider could raise the alarm. Suddenly the clearing was bright, and dozens of the creatures roused from their obscene slumbers and swarmed down thick silk cables to the attack. Leif drew and fired, drew and fired, each arrow spelling the death of one, but the swarm kept coming. Crying out, Freor drove his axe into and through the first spider._

Freor woke with a start, eyes flying open, only to snap shut again against the winter sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. Arod bellowed as a spider dropped from a tree behind Leif. Before it hit the ground, the horse reared and smashed his steel-shod hooves into its body. It dropped with an audible pulp, and the horse reared and crashed down again. Freor shook his head vigorously and blinked against the light, the image of a monstrous dead spider superimposed over his bedcovers. The ground in front of him was littered with cloven bodies. He’d raised his axe yet again before he realized that the few remaining spiders had given up and were scuttling away to safety. Leif shot his last arrows after them, but some half-dozen escaped. The elf cursed and then turned to check Arod for wounds. Black blood coated the horse’s forelegs almost to the knee. Three or four spiders lay before him, too trampled for accurate tally.

Leif turned back to Freor. "You are unhurt?"

Freor stared at the incongruous dream-Leif standing in his bedroom, strangely dressed and spattered with spider blood. He was transparent- like a watercolor painted on glass- and Freor could see the bedroom window behind- no, _through_ him. Freor felt his waking mouth form words and speak to the nightmare that hadn’t stopped when he woke. "Aye. You?"

Watercolor-Leif nodded, eyes wide, breathing hard. "Yes. I must collect my arrows."

Freor watched him pull arrows out of dead bodies. One spider twitched when the elf approached and he drew his blade and stabbed it through. He stabbed again, slashing through it sideways. He slashed again and again, obviously furious, every muscle taut with tension. Freor watched his left hand rise to Leif’s transparent shoulder, touching nothing. He said, throat tight, voice gravelly with sleep, "Legolas, meldon... It is dead, beloved." He took the blade from Leif’s unresisting hand and wiped it clean on the watercolor leaves carpeting the bedroom floor, and then blade, leaves, and elf faded away, and Freor found himself on the floor in his nightshirt, brushing his empty hand against the bedroom rug. He stared at his hands, then sat down with a thud.


	22. Falling Into Darkness

F.A. 2063, March 31st. Drinsburg.

_1 March '63_  
 _Leif Green_  
 _44 Pine Rd N_  
 _Dale 8255_

 _Freor,_  
 _Correct on all counts once again, except that there probably is something you could say about the matter that hasn’t already occurred to me. After Gimli died and I came back to Middle-earth, I searched for him for a long time. I didn’t even know, specifically, what I was searching for. And then on one very ordinary day I went to the market- a market I’d been to a dozen times before- and there he was. And it was so obviously him, which was strange and confusing because he didn’t look anything like the Gimli I had known. He was shorter, and his hair and skin were a different color, and his face a different shape, and he was considerably younger than the Gimli I had loved for so long. But... I knew. I have no explanation for it other than something unsatisfyingly mystical like “I recognized his soul”. For five seconds I was struck dumb with joy, but as soon as I approached him it was obvious he didn’t know who I was. Not only did he not remember me, he thought me completely mad, as would anyone in that situation. So that was... not the easiest time in my life. But eventually- years later- he did remember, and we were happy again._

_Yes. Spring is upon us, as fitfully rainy and blustery and sunny as always. The crocuses in the back garden are spreading, and the apple trees budding pink as I write. Perhaps they liked the wassail. There are goslings on the pond at the end of Pine Road, and the air is beginning to smell green. The squill are glowing bluer than the sky, the flowering plum floating white in the breeze, the forsythia shining gold. I’ve pruned the fruit trees, re-staked the raspberry canes, and weeded the strawberry rockery. Soon it will be time to plant. Green peas this year, and lettuces, sorrel, rocket and chives. Chard and carrots, beets and sweet potatoes, red runner beans, summer squash, tomatoes and melon._

_I miss you, too. Is it getting better there? How are you feeling? And Hildis? Did you get a cat? Found any good books I should investigate?_  
 _-Leif_

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

F.A. 2063, April 27th. Dale.

_5 April '63_  
 _Freor Frorsson_  
 _72 NE 8th Ave_  
 _Drinsburg 0121-08_  
 _Grey Mountains_

 _Leif-_  
 _I’m coming home next month. Hild and I both are. I don’t know if it’ll help. Hell, it might make things worse, but nothing I’ve tried here has helped, so. Things have been weird. Bad weird. I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping and it’s made everything else in my life pretty hard. I wasn’t going to tell you because it seems mean to tell someone that you’ve been having lots of bad dreams about them, but honestly my rope is getting so short I’ll try anything. I’m sorry. But you were, after all, really understanding about the “true name” dream. You were wrong about that though, since I’m on the subject- it did recur after I talked about it. It stopped being a nightmare, but I still have it. It’s different now, though- you’re not in it anymore. Now you’re in the other nightmares. Some of them, anyway. I’m afraid to go to sleep. I’m so tired. Don’t bother to reply- we’ll be on the road before your letter would have time to reach me. I’ll see you in May._  
 _-Freor_

  


F.A. 2063, April 30th. Great Northern Road.

_Freor watched his own hands craft a complicated, sinuous piece of metalwork for several minutes. He was in his element, happily engrossed in his craft. His front door banged open and he turned to look, startled. It was Leif Green- his cousin Egil’s mad friend who thought that Freor housed the spirit of his dead best friend or something equally absurd. Freor pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. “Leif? What are you doing here?”_

_“What. Am I. Doing. Here.” Green held what looked like an empty bottle of wine in his right hand, which he plunked noisily down on the dwarf’s hall table. Freor_ started awake at the sound, blinking up at the canvas roof of the caravan. The elf stood in his front hall, hovering five feet above Freor’s head. “Two thousand years, dwarf!” Leif strode across the room- or down to Freor’s face- yanked the tools from his empty hands and dropped them on the workbench. “It’s our anniversary!” Transparent dream-Leif gripped Freor’s shoulders and kissed him, hard. It might have knocked him off his stool had he not been lying on the caravan floor.

When the shock wore off Freor pushed both hands through the elf’s watercolor chest and shoved him away, standing (sitting) up as he did so. “What in the world is...?!” He stopped, realizing Hildis was staring at him from her seat across the caravan, face drawn with worry. “...wrong with you?” Freor ended quietly, lost.

Dream-Leif was wrapped in furs and his cheeks pink from the cold. His eyes blazed, three inches to the left of Hild’s eyes behind him. “Nothing you can’t cure.” The elf’s voice was low, soft, and a disturbing blend of menacing and hopeless. Hildis got up from her seat and went over to her brother, stepping over their luggage on the way. She sat down on the floor beside him and laid an arm around his shoulders. Freor dropped his head against hers. His eyes were wide and staring. He spoke to empty air: “What? No, I can’t. I’m sorry if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

Freor saw Leif’s fading jaw clench as the elf turned and stalked back across the fading room and out the fading door, and was gone. Hildis said, “It’s okay, Freor, I’m here. You don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to. Just rest.” Freor leaned heavily against her and covered his face with both hands.


	23. The Sleep of the Mortal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's another chunk of text from [Kaleidoscope](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829538) in this chapter, but, again, it's re-told from Gimli's perspective.

FA 2063, May 6th. Dale.

There was a sharp rap at Leif’s front door. He glanced unnecessarily at the clock on the wall. He knew without looking that Bundin was early for her lesson again, but this was worse than usual, and she’d never knocked with such impatience. He put down his pliers with a sigh and was overcome with deja vu. He opened it and found not the dwarf he half-expected but his little sister instead. “He said he wrote to you and explained.”  
“Sort of.”  
“He seems to think you can help. Can you?”  
“I don’t know. I hope so.”  
“Will you go see him? I’m on my way into town.”  
“Yes. Give me just a minute.” He wrote an apologetic note for Bundin, stuck it under his doorknocker, and followed Sindri down his front steps. “How is he?”  
“A zombie. Hild says he hasn’t slept a full eight hours since March, and half the time he wakes up crying, and half of that time he doesn’t even seem to realize it. And it would be plenty bad enough if it were just Freor, but he keeps her awake, too. Why does he think you can help? You’re no doctor.”  
“I don’t really know. Didn’t he say?”  
“No, just that he needed to see you. We got him an appointment with a sleep-disorder specialist, but that’s not ‘til Monday.”  
“Maybe for... moral support? Until he went to Drinsburg I think I was his best friend.”  
They reached the corner and said their goodbyes. Sindri turned right and continued on into Dale. Leif went left to The Kingdom.

* * *

The knock at Freor’s bedroom door didn’t sound like anyone in his family. He dragged his voice through the fog squeezing his mind. “Come in.”  
Leif clicked the door shut behind him, pulled the chair out from under Freor’s desk, placed it next to the bed, and sat down. “How’s the insomnia?”

Freor squinted up at the elf, hand on his forehead. He was unshielded: Beautiful as fire, tender as water, necessary as air. Freor’s crush had abated not the tiniest bit. If anything it had grown. He was aching, desperately tired, and half mad from months of bad visions. He reached out his hand. Leif took and held it between both his own. “They’re not normal nightmares. They’re... hallucinations. They start while I’m sleeping and continue after I wake up. Sometimes you’re in them so I thought maybe if I saw you it would... I don’t know. Get better.”  
“Every night?”  
“No, but most. Too many.”  
“Have there been no good ones?”  
“Um... a few. Five or six, maybe. Out of dozens. I never tried to imagine what it would be like to go mad, but if I had, it wouldn’t have been this.”  
Leif squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry, Freor. What can I do?”

Freor tried to think. Why had he sent for Leif? What did he think the elf could do? His back hurt and his eyes throbbed. “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess, it’s just...” He turned onto his side and curled into a ball without dislodging his hand from Leif’s grasp. “Before. You said... compared with all the terrible things I could be dreaming, the hervenn dream wasn’t so bad. And now I’m dreaming all the terrible things. Why am I dreaming the terrible things?”

  


Freor looked pale and exhausted. He’d said nothing about it in his letters, but it was obvious- especially to someone who hadn’t seen him in nine months- that the dwarf’s body had changed. His shoulders were broader, his beard fuller, and it was hard to tell while he was lying down, but Legolas was prepared to swear he was taller, too. He’d become a physically mature, adult dwarf at the surprisingly young age of forty-one. Not impossible, clearly, but very rare, and Legolas had no doubt that it was harbinger of the second, less obvious, more difficult (and from his perspective, more fun) puberty that dwarves endured. “Do they recur? Like the hervenn dream did?”  
“Some of them. Some I have over and over again. Some just once.”  
Leif began massaging the muscles of his hand. “I’m happy to listen if you’d like to talk about it.” Freor groaned. “Is it ever you or me who’s doing terrible things? Or is it that they’re happening to us- or people around us- and we’re witnessing it?”  
Freor rubbed his free hand over his eyes. “The latter. Sometimes we’re fighting, but not each other; like- goblin things. Or wolves. I don’t know if that’s terrible or just scary. There’s one where we’re- it’s you and me and some friends but I don’t know who they are- we’re in a manse- it’s sort of like The Kingdom but not- running from this giant… monster. It’s on fire, and very fast, and hell-bent on killing us.” He shuddered. “I hate that one.” Leif scooted the chair closer to the bed. “And this other one with this different giant attacking me… not on fire but just as hell-bent.” Freor shut his eyes and let it come pouring out. “That one’s just me, though. No friends.” He felt Leif lay his other hand on his head. “And one where we’re being chased by these awful ghosts, which would be bad enough in itself but we’re on a horse, too, and it can’t outrun them. And one… I don’t even know where I am. It’s just you at a grave, crying like the whole world died.” Leif stroked his hair. Freor dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “One where I walk into a village, the streets… not’s everyone’s dead, but the dead are the lucky ones.” Freor pulled the elf’s hand deeper into the bed with him, and Leif followed it. “I don’t want to go to sleep.” Leif wrapped both arms around him and held him close. “I’m so tired.”

The elf stroked his back. “I know there weren’t enough, but do you remember any of the good ones?”  
Freor nodded against him. “Yeah.”  
“Was I in any of those?”  
“M hm.”  
“Would you tell me one?”  
Freor drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s crazy.”  
“Dreams usually are.”  
“We were talking to trees. I mean they were talking to us. They had mouths and faces and everything, except they were wood. You were laughing and joking with one of them in elvish, and I was talking with another about building something big. I didn’t understand it.” Freor yawned. He could feel himself relaxing, and a corner of his mind knew sleep was inches away, lying in wait. “Then they gave us a bundle of something and we left and just... wandered around in a forest for a while. You had this look on your face like…” He yawned again. “Like you couldn’t believe your luck. Like everything you saw was the most beautiful thing in the world. You sang a lot.” He’d just begun to doze when he realized Leif was humming, low and sweet. He listened, glad to have something to focus on besides his own mind. He thought he recognized the tune, but couldn’t quite place it. “I think Dad used to sing that to me when I was little.” Freor felt the hum through his skin, like a cat purring. His eyes felt so heavy; ears bundled in wool. “Will you stay here?”  
Legolas cradled Freor’s head against his chest. He whispered, “‘Til the sun burns out, and the moon...” He listened to Freor’s breath. He was already sleeping. “...Falls from the sky.”

* * *

_"So you seek revenge, do you, Master Elf?" Without regaining his feet Freor dove for Leif's ankles. Leif dodged, but not quickly enough. He fell and Freor scrambled to pin him, but Leif rolled aside and got to his feet. Freor stood as well, and they circled each other warily, seeking an opening in one another's defenses. Leif was beautiful and dangerous and even more beautiful for the danger. The elf feinted to the right, but Freor saw through it and blocked Leif’s attempt to get to his left side. Freor grinned, "Will you dance, my friend?" and rushed forward. Leif stepped aside and they circled once again._

_Freor’s mind was full of the game they played, but there was enough room in it still to notice and enjoy the elf’s grace. When Leif attacked again, Freor stepped back onto a round branch which rolled out from under foot. He pretended to flail his arms for balance, and then grabbed the elf’s shoulders while he was caught off guard and bore him to the ground, falling on top of him. The impact_ woke Freor and he gazed up at the bedroom ceiling, disoriented and confused, as dream-Gimli’s eyes in his head watched his legs straddle watercolor-Leif’s chest, holding him captive.

"You will not catch a dwarf with a trick so obvious as that," Freor said, shaking his head against the shoulder in bed beside it. Transparent-Leif in the air above him struggled against his weight, while the real, solid Leif beside him turned and propped himself up on one elbow. Then there were two of him looking down into Freor’s eyes. Freor raised his hands to pin dream-Leif’s arms and wait through his attempts to escape, but they connected with real-Leif’s arms instead.  
“What are you seeing?”  
Freor blinked. He was looking up at the solid Leif through the transparent one. “You in a forest.” He blinked again. “My bedroom.”  
“What’s happening?”  
“We’re... fighting. You knocked me down and I...” The watercolor trees, the blue sky, and dream-Leif faded away, but real-Leif remained, framed by Freor’s carved-rock bedroom ceiling. “You’re still here.”  
“Sure am.”  
“How long was I was I asleep?”  
“Half an hour or so. Was that one better?”  
Freor nodded. “We weren’t really fighting. I wanted...” He swallowed. “I want...” 

Freor slid his hands up over Leif’s shoulders to either side of his head and pulled the elf’s face down toward him until their foreheads touched. He said, “I’ve wanted you since you showed up on our doorstep soaking wet with a sprained ankle,” and tilted his face up until his mouth met Leif’s, and the unnamable something way down deep that had been hurting since last spring- no, since Dad- since the Fair- since Evendim- Jaz- Lothlorien-... screamed inside his head for a second... three... four...  
and echoed,  
and was still. 

And when quiet came to him again, Freor discovered that Leif was still kissing him, and it was perfect beyond hope or fear or despair. His mind unclenched, and he slipped back into sleep.


	24. Still in Disgrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freor turning 40 is culturally equivalent to a modern human turning 18, though it’s not physically analogous since the dwarven two-phase maturation/puberty process is quite different from a human’s. At 41, Freor has begun puberty, but he isn’t fully mature yet. (You can read this [essay](https://1drv.ms/w/s!AkGCJevfLkuLcWzGFEzYAL4Vgk0) on the subject, which came out of my communications with Adina about her vision of Tolkien's universe, but it was so long ago now that I don't remember if she wrote it, or I did, or if we're both responsible for parts of it.) Point being: Freor’s legal, but _far_ younger than half-your-age-plus-seven. Obviously there’s no possible comparison for Legolas’ age, but in human years he might as well be, oh, let’s say 45. Would you want your 18-year-old son dating a 45-year-old? No. No, you would not. That would squick you the hell out.

F.A. 2063, May 7th. The Kingdom under the Mountain.

Some time later Legolas heard a faint knock on Freor’s door. He didn't want to wake the sleeper beside him, and whispered "Yeah" as loudly as he dared. The door opened and Hildis’s head appeared. Legolas watched her eyebrows rise halfway up her forehead as she took in the scene. The elf pointed to Freor and whispered “Two hours solid,” and gave her a thumbs-up. Her brows scrunched right back down into a frown and she whispered back, “I need to talk to you.”  
“Can it wait?”  
She glanced at her brother, seemingly more peaceful than he’d been in weeks. “I don’t think so.”  
“Okay.” Legolas lifted Freor’s hand off his stomach and laid it gently on the bed, extricated himself from the tangled bedclothes, and climbed out. Freor stirred but did not wake. Legolas latched the door quietly behind him and followed her into the kitchen.

It was quite late. Heid and Sindri were both asleep. Hildis sat down at the kitchen table. “I appreciate you helping him sleep, I really do, but... it’s not a good idea for you to share his bed.”  
“He asked me to.”  
“Yeah, I’m not surprised. That’s why it’s a bad idea. Look, Leif, what are you, about... forty-five?”  
“About.”  
“In fifty years you’ll be a very old man.”  
“And?”  
“That’s how long it will be before Freor reaches the age when dwarves typically marry.”  
_Ohh, I see. Interesting, Hildis, this suspicion from a dwarf barely older._ “Well I hope he will invite me to his wedding despite my age.”  
She visibly stiffened. “You don’t know.”  
“Know what?”  
“He thinks...” She stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know how to explain this to a man. He’s... attracted to you.”  
“He told you this?”  
“Not in so many words. I guessed from context and he confirmed it.”

Legolas nodded slowly, considering. “I see. Or I think I do. You’re saying that he’s far too young to fall in love, and if he ever does, it won’t be with me, because by the time he’s old enough I’ll be an old man, and not a fundamentally monogamous one, as dwarves are. And that the only thing I'll accomplish by physical closeness at this time is to confuse the issue, and hurt him, and end up breaking his innocent heart. And you think that if I care about him, I should be making it crystal clear that I am his teacher and his friend, and that’s it, now and always.”

She stared at him, mouth open. “Well... yeah. Okay, maybe you do understand.”  
“We’re on the same side, Hildis. I want to protect him, too. I’ll be clear with him, and not do anything he can misinterpret. But today, I think I should be there when he wakes up. You know better than anyone how fragile he is right now, and he specifically asked me to stay, and I think it would be more hurtful if he woke and found himself abandoned.  
She nodded, jaw set. “All right.”  
  
_He’s lucky to have you for family. And someday the three of us will have a good laugh about this conversation._

* * *

_Freor hurried up the broad front steps of the Drinsburg public library. It was already dark, and officially the library didn’t close for another ten minutes, but he knew that Dombur was already doing the day’s-end reshelving and organizing. Ten minutes was enough time to check his shelf and say hi. He strode in- snow gusting behind him- and up to the vast front desk. It was a dark purplish-brown and aggressively shiny. The library appeared to be empty except for Dombur- whose tumble of bright red hair seemed to spill out over the top of the filing cabinet- and one human patron standing before the desk filling in a form with a pencil. Freor set his book down under the hanging sign marked “returns”. The man glanced at it, then did a double-take. He looked up- or rather down- at Freor’s face, blinked, flashed a surprisingly wide smile, and said, “Hello.”_  
_Freor thought this rather overly familiar from a stranger and obvious foreigner, and a man to boot. He frowned._  
_“Did you read it?”_  
_“I beg your pardon?”_  
_The stranger gestured toward the book with his pencil. “Songs of the Eldar.”_  
_Freor narrowed his eyes. “What’s it to you?”_  
_The man shook his head, still smiling. “I’m sorry, that was rude. It’s just that it’s one of my favorite books but I don’t know anyone else who likes it, so I’m always…” he trailed off._

_Freor looked him up and down. He was odd-looking: very tall, very thin, with delicate features and strangely flat hair. He knew it was unfair of him to make a snap judgement, but the man made him uneasy. “Well,” he said, “You still don’t,” and walked away toward the hold shelves. Dombur popped his head up from the cabinet. “Oh, hey you. We’re closing soon.”_  
_“I know, I’ll just be a minute. Checking my shelf.”_  
_“Oh good,“ Dombur said, grinning inexplicably._

_There were two new books waiting for him (“History of the Druedain” and “Sedimentary Geology”), and beside them a little blue cardboard box tied up with a silver ribbon and a tag with “Happy Birthday, Dori!” written on it. He untied and opened the box and peeled aside the tissue. There were two fresh, shiny, sweet-bean dumplings inside, speckled with toasted sesame seeds and smelling of heaven. “Now that,” he thought, “Is friendship.” He shut the box again, laid it on top of the books, and carried the lot back up to the front desk. Dombur stood behind it, smiling at Freor with all his teeth. The man was still there, writing on his form. Freor ignored him. “Don’t tell me you baked these yourself.”_  
_Dombur laughed, “Oh no. Got ‘em at Larsson’s.” Then he reached under the desk and pulled out two small wax candles on toothpicks, one shaped like a 9 and the other like a 4. He pulled open the lid and stuck one in each dumpling. “The lid wouldn’t close over the candles, so.”_  
_Freor sighed mock-dramatically and clasped his hands together beside his cheek. “Larsson’s! Best in town. Darnit, I’d love to stay and share these with you but I’m supposed to be over at Soren’s for dinner at six. How ‘bout for breakfast tomorrow? Tiny party at my place?”_  
_“You’re on. 8:30?”_  
_“Perfect.” He set the box aside, pulled the jacket cards out of both books, and signed them. Dombur set the rubber stamp to a date three weeks in the future and the THUMP sound they made on the date due slips_ woke him up. Freor pulled the watercolor candles out and laid them flat across the tops of the transparent dumplings and re-closed the fading box. “Thanks!"  
Dombur smiled down at him from his bedroom ceiling. “See you tomorrow. “  
Freor was halfway to the library door when he heard Dream-Leif say, “Happy birthday, sir.” He stopped and turned to look, and once again saw the real Leif in his room through the watercolor one behind his eyes. “Um… thanks.” He blinked rapidly, and became aware that the elf was asleep in the bed beside him. The lamp was turned down low, and Freor was thirsty. The clock on his bedside table said 6:13, but he had no sense of how long he’d been asleep so didn’t know if it was morning or night, or even when he’d fallen aslee- _Oh._  
_Hervenn._

Freor looked down at him again. His mouth was open slightly and his hair fanned out over the pillow. His shirt collar bunched up against his neck and two inches of his stomach were visible between the hem and his belt. His stocking feet stuck well out over the end of the bed. _Why did you let me… What?_ A second later the elf opened his eyes and then smiled up at him in a way he’d seen only once before- over a scrabble game nearly two years ago- when he’d spoken Leif’s elvish name. He stared, transfixed. He was impossibly beautiful, and Freor had the odd sense that underneath were layers more beautiful still, that he couldn’t see, or couldn’t see yet.

“I don’t... understand.”  
“How did you sleep?”  
“Um... better. A lot. I feel rested.” Leif just gazed at him calmly, inches from his face. In his bed. Freor tried to piece together what happened, but what he thought he remembered wasn’t possible. “Did I… wake up before? I mean…”  
“This is the second time you’ve woken since I’ve been here.”  
“What happened? The first time.”  
“A dream woke you. You said we’d been fighting in a forest. And then you said it wasn’t really fighting, and that you’d wanted me since Yule last year. And then you kissed me, and I kissed you, and you fell asleep again.” Leif was smiling gently, evidently not the least disturbed by what he’d just said.  
“Am I losing my mind?”  
“Why, is that not how you remember it?”  
“That is how I remember it, but that doesn’t mean I’m sane.”

Leif disentangled a hand from the bedclothes and brought it up to Freor’s face. He slid four fingers across his cheek ‘til they met his ear, the pad of his thumb coming to rest just below Freor’s eye. “I haven’t been this happy in a long time.”  
“So is that it? You’ve just…. got a thing for dwarves?”  
“That’s not how I’d put it, but I suppose it is fair to say.”  
“How would you put it?”  
“I’ve got a thing for you. You happen to be a dwarf.”  
“Like Buri and Gimli happened to be dwarves.”  
“Yes.” Leif brushed his thumb over Freor’s cheekbone.  
“Buri who you think was Gimli reincarnated?”  
“Yes.”  
“Because God told you you’d find your dead husband again if you left Valinor and went back to Middle-earth.”  
“No, only that once Gimli was in Mandos’ halls, Mahal would give him the choice. There was no guarantee.”  
Freor chewed his lip. “Have you… considered therapy?”  
Leif laughed merrily. “Ah, I’ve seen several therapists over the years.” He gave Freor’s braid a playful tug. “Thinking me mad doesn’t seem to have prevented you from getting attached to me.”  
“I went to Drinsburg to try to forget you.”  
“Really? Writing me letters would seem inconsistent with that goal.”  
Freor shook his head, wondering. He brushed the back of his hand against the fabric of Leif’s shirt. “I’m starting to think maybe this isn’t a teacher-crush.”  
“Did you really think it was?”  
“Well, of course. I thought that’s the only thing it could be. What did you think, when I told you?”  
“I thought you probably wouldn’t be able to determine- to your own satisfaction- if that’s what was going on until you got some distance from the context wherein I _was_ your teacher. And that that would take some time. But it’s not like I’m going to run out of time, so.”  
“So. So… what? I’m the “right circumstances, right person”? You’ve been wandering the world for a thousand years since Buri died and now… me?”  
“That’s the gist of it, yes.”  
“That’s nuts.” Leif just smiled again. “And my family is going to Freak. Out.”  
“Very likely.”

This second kiss was not what Legolas expected it to be. Freor was focused. Detailed. As though he were beginning a slow, attentive memorization of the elf’s mouth. It was impossible not to respond in kind, and Legolas found himself learning new things about the way his dwarf breathed, and tasted, and the smoothness of his tongue. It was extraordinarily intimate, and so familiar that once he gathered the strength to break away he peered into his eyes a long moment. _Gimli?_ But it was Freor who returned his gaze. _No. Still sleeping._

Their first kiss hadn’t been, either. (Of the expected character, that is.) Though Legolas knew that his surprise was only half at Freor’s abrupt and endearing slumber, and half at the intensity of his own feelings. The span he’d spent with a Gimli who never saw him, who apparently _could_ not see him (or worse: could, but somehow remained uncaring) had worn him down. He’d spent years- both before and after Tholl’s death- trying to come to terms with it, with mixed success. He’d thought that he was now, finally, at peace with the eighth incarnation, and only discovered lurking within himself the deeper well of hurt and longing and frustration that remained in Tholl’s wake at the very moment Freor kissed him- Gimli kissed him- for the first time in three hundred years. So Freor, suddenly and deeply in his innocent sleep the night before, hadn’t seen him cry, nor heard him whisper their ancient lullaby. That conversation would happen eventually, but he wanted to have it with Gimli. One who Remembered. He’d have it with Freor someday, he knew, even if the lad never found true Memory again, but Legolas had every reason to hope that he would. He was making a damn good start.

  


Leif’s cheeks were pink and Freor noticed once more his delicious smell. His eyes shone. Might have been excitement, might have been tears. “So, the Longseeker legend.”  
“Mhm?”  
“It says ‘He lived here Under the Mountain in the time of King Barin.’”  
“And?”  
“Which was when you were here with Buri.”  
“Right.”  
“But then it says ‘And now wanders Middle-earth from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills, always seeking.’”  
Leif wrinkled his brow. “What about it?”  
“Buri _was_ what you were seeking. You’d already found him. But the legend has you seeking _after_ Buri’s time."  
“Oh. So it does.”  
“What, d’you think he’s gonna come back agai- “ Freor stopped suddenly, eyes like saucers. “Oh.” Then dinner plates. “OH!” Then enormous platters overflowing with gigantic mumak steaks. “Oh my GOD.”

Freor pushed himself up and out of the bed and backed away as understanding smashed into him. A hundred Leifs whirled through his mind, spinning around a hundred Freors - _the world isn’t going to run out of people for me to love - you’ll always know where to find me - your age is not now nor ever will be an obstacle - I never know where to begin - the rat still owes me fifty guilders - Green’s business card in the breast pocket of his funeral suit - my advice is to remember that you’re free - ‘til the sun burns out - a tinwhistle passing between them on a park bench at the fair -_

“Have you been stalking me since I was _sixteen_?!”  
Leif let out a breath. “Much longer than that. I just didn’t know it was you, specifically, until I met you. That day.”  
Freor gaped. “The FUCK. You… you’re insane. I avoided that conclusion for so long because I didn’t want it to be true, but no, you actually are stark raving bananas.”

Leif sat up and dropped his feet to the floor beside the bed, his knees angled up. “Maybe, but I doubt it. A better explanation is that you were entirely correct when you said that I have a habit of telling you only part of the story, and the whole truth much later.”  
Freor backed up all the way to the wall. “The whole truth. I don’t even know who you really are. I got attached to someone I don’t know. And you let me.”  
“Could I have stopped you?”  
“You could have just stayed away from me.”  
Leif nodded, regret and apology clear on his face. “That’s true. And that had been the plan, actually. I wasn’t going to meet you again for another twenty years, but… Fror died. And you were in so much pain. And even after the funeral I wouldn’t have… but you reached out to me.”  
“You should have told me the truth.”  
“The truth is very long and very complicated and- as you say- insane, and I’ve been slowly telling it to you for years.”  
“Except for the important part where you think I’m the reincarnation of your dead husband. And why the hell are you smiling when I’m yelling at you?”  
“You’re not the third incarnation of Gimli. You’re the ninth.”  
“What?”  
“The whole truth, I’m telling you now: He was called Buri when I found him the fourth time. The fifth he was in the Blue Mountains, the sixth at Aglarond, the seventh in Drinsburg, the eighth in the Iron Hills. Some of them eventually remembered their former lives, or parts of them- or at least the first Gimli’s life- and some didn’t.”

Freor’s jaw worked silently as he shrank under shock and a sense of betrayal. And despair. It had been perfectly beautiful for five minutes. And now this. “What is it you want from me?”  
“Ultimately I want you to remember being Gimli, but that’s not something either of us can control. I know, I’ve tried. Doesn’t work. So failing that, I want to share your life. On your terms. And share mine with you.”  
“And if my terms are ‘leave me alone you psycho’?”  
“Then I will respectfully leave you alone.” Leif pulled his discarded shoes out from under the bed, slipped them on, and began to tie them.  
That brought Freor up short. “You will? You’ll just… not... share my life?”  
“Correct. Maybe this time I don’t get what I want. But we were friends for three years and I enjoyed every day of it, so I don’t plan to write this one off as a loss. _Are_ those your terms?”  
Freor stared at him. Everything hurt. “Yes.”

Leif stood, ducking his head to avoid the ceiling. “Very well. You know where to find me if you change your mind.” He was already through the door and was about to shut it behind him when he popped his head back in. Freor did not turn to meet his eyes. “Oh- one thing: Did you ever try looking “hervenn” up in an elvish dictionary?”  
“What?”  
“It’s a Sindarin word.”  
“You said it was a nonsense word.”  
“I said it wasn’t my name. Which is true, but it isn’t nonsense, either. Anyway, have a lovely life.” He left.

  


Once he was home again, Legolas realized he remembered nothing of getting there. He knew he must have walked, and that there had probably been weather of some kind, and people on the road that he greeted… But all he saw was Gimli’s many faces, and all he felt, his mouth and breath, and all he heard, his many voices echoing _wanted you since… since… since…_

He was Remembering. For the first time in six centuries, Gimli was beginning to Remember. Legolas didn’t stop singing for a solid week. He spent every night stretched out on his roof, singing to the stars and to his love inside the mountain to the north. He hadn’t been so deliriously happy since… he shook his head, chuckling. Who knew? Fourteen-something. Close enough.


	25. Neither Gift nor Strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. “Sweet and Low” is an excerpt from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1847 narrative poem “The Princess”, and was set to music by Sir Joseph Barnby in 1863. There’s a nice a capella version of it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avuo4HzUlKw). Yes, this was the tune Fror sang to Freor when he was little, and Leif played on the tin whistle when they met. It’s also the “ancient lullaby” that Freor didn’t hear in chapter 24. I've known this song since [before I could read ](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/682747.The_Maggie_B_), but hadn't thought about it in years. When I encountered it again recently and realized just how eerily appropriate it is to Leif and Freor's story, I couldn't not include it.

F.A. 2063, May 11th. Dale.

Infirmities of the body are not unknown among dwarves, but they occur with far less frequency there than they do in the human population. Men, by contrast, are susceptible to such an astonishing array of infections, degenerative diseases, and nonspecific malaises that dwarves frequently wonder how the race has managed to endure for so long. Perhaps their weakness also explained their mystifying promiscuity- they have to breed a lot or they’ll die out. Sleep disturbances were common among them, and Dale was large enough that there were mannish doctors there who spent their professional lives investigating and treating those who, for whatever reason, suffered from sleep: too little, too much, too active, too frightening, too sad.

Once Freor was home and his family could see his distress for themselves (and Hildis’s, though hers was sympathetic), they came to the conclusion that he was, for lack of a better theory, ill in one of the mannish ways. It was clearly serious, and chronic, but also, they were sure, treatable and temporary. Drinsburg had no human community and therefore no doctors of the right kind, and the whole family were glad indeed that Heid's elder children had decided to come home to near-Dale for help.

* * *

_Freor walked beside Leif along the bank of a stream. It was evening, and warm, and the darkening path was lit with paper lanterns hanging from the boughs above their heads, heavy with fragrant white blossom. Little, brightly-colored paper boats carrying candlelights floated on the water. There were dwarves in the meadows all around them- men, women, and children- on this bank and the far side, strolling and laughing with glasses of golden liquid, or dancing in little clusters while one or two played a pipe and drum, or singing (very loud), or just lying in the grass, chatting and throwing grapes at one another. Elf and dwarf were quiet, but now and again as they walked the tall one would pluck a petal from the trees above them and drop it lightly onto the shorter one’s head. After a few minutes of this the dwarf looked as though he’d been caught in a private snowstorm. Two girls- just old enough to giggle at the pair- passed them, pointing at the lantern above them, and called out together in a loud, sing-song whisper, “Golden the Spring! Golden the Spring!” Freor stopped walking and looked up. A bright yellow lantern was directly over the elf’s head._  
_"We do have a reputation to uphold, you know.”_  
_“Oh, indeed? I thought it was that you can’t get enough of me.”_  
_“Nonsense. You grow tiresome, but our public would be so disappointed.”_  
_Leif quirked an eyebrow- “Tiresome, is it?”- and grabbed Freor around the waist, pulling him into a ridiculously theatrical kiss- complete with dip on the part of the first and flailing arms on the part of the second, but which lasted long enough that both got a little more serious about the matter by the end- before dropping him unceremoniously onto the soft grass. Freor’s eyes_ popped open when he hit the ground. Watercolor Leif stood over him in the sleep clinic test room, framed by melting lanterns.  
“Indeed-“ Freor stopped to catch his breath, then began again. “You quite tire me out.”  
A smattering of applause and appreciative hoots wafted their direction from across the stream, or maybe through the window to the obs room where Dr. Ross sat with a clipboard and a cup of coffee. Freor shut his eyes against the room, willing the warm spring night to stay, please stay.  
“Lucky you,” Leif said, chuckling as he plopped down next to Freor on the grass.  
The dwarf’s smile could have swallowed Anduin as he gazed up at the tracery of white petals fading to mist as they tickled the deep blue dusk. “Lucky, lucky me.”  
The trees and the evening and the elf leaning down to meet him faded to black. He sighed and opened his eyes. He turned and was glad to see the glass of water still on the nightstand beside the bed. He sat up and reached for it and heard the comm door in the wall slide open. The doctor’s voice was low and soothing. “Would you like some tea, Freor?”

He took a sip of the water and set the glass down again, his eyes turning toward her through the plate glass window. “Mm, please. How long was that?”  
“An hour.” She stepped ‘round the door into the testing room with a steaming mug. She set it on the nightstand, and herself down in the armchair a few feet from the bed. “That sounded a lot less like a nightmare than last time.”  
Freor nodded and sipped the tea. “Yeah. Much better.”  
“But it did still continue after you woke.”  
“M hm.”  
“How long, would you estimate?”  
“Minute and a half, maybe? Didn’t you time it?”  
“It was 56 seconds from when your eyes opened to when you sat up. Were you awake before you opened your eyes?”  
“I don’t think so. No.”  
“So the the overlap is decreasing, and the nightmares are less frequent.”  
He nodded again. “Yeah. That one was so much better I’m tempted to say I’ll take it, but I still wish they’d stop waking me. I’m so tired.”  
“You can go back to sleep as soon as you like. Is there anything else you need?”  
He took another sip of the tea, set it down, and then flopped back onto the bed. “Nope. Just naps.” He pulled the blankets up over his head.  
“All right. Sleep tight.” Dr. Ross returned to the obs room. Freor was asleep again before she picked up her clipboard.

* * *

_Freor headed down the hall to the parlor, admonishing finger at the ready, but stopped short in the doorway. Papa had built up the fire in the hearth and the room was quite warm. He was sitting on the rug, legs outstretched, shirt unbuttoned to the waist, leaning against the big brown leather chair. Ivy sat- or rather stood, bouncing- on his thighs as he balanced her, long fingers encircling her tiny hobbit middle, and she beamed up at him. She wasn't walking yet, but had the strongest little toes and feet and legs and they knew it wouldn't be long. He was babbling at her in elvish and she giggled back. She reached out and grabbed at his hair, which was loose and fell before him. When she managed to get hold of a hank she tried to stuff it right in her mouth. He chuckled and pulled it away, then sat her down while he drew the shining cascade behind him and tied it in a knot. He planted a kiss on her nose, and began to sing softly:_

_Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind on the western sea,_  
_Low, low, breathe and blow, wind on the western sea._  
_Over the rolling waters go, come from the dying moon, and blow,_  
_Blow him again to me, while my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps._

_Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, father will come to thee soon._  
_Rest, rest, on mother’s breast, father will come to thee soon._  
_Father will come to his babe in the nest, silver sails all out of the west._  
_Under the silver moon, sleep my little one, sleep my pretty one, sleep._

_She stared at him as the music flowed from his mouth. Freor stood equally transfixed. He knew the song, but had forgotten it: Papa used to sing it to him when he was very small, at night when he woke from nightmares. And now all Freor’s strange, wonderful, awful dreams over the past year swirled together in his mind, a jumble of caves and forests and beaches, fighting and running and riding and... and all the beautiful, terrible visions of his father in all those unfamiliar places converged here in this one single point, bathed in firelight and love, and Freor forgot himself, all his anxiety about filial piety drowned for the moment in a lake of joy and desire. He didn't know how long he'd been staring when he realized that Papa, his eyes still on Ivy, was addressing him. He shook himself. "I'm sorry, what?"_  
_"Polo and Ruby. Are they asleep?"_  
_"Oh. Yes." His voice cracked as it hadn't since he was a lad._  
_Freor saw Papa turn to look at him, and then saw his smile turn abruptly to concern. "Nain? What's wrong?"_  
_He realized he'd been holding his breath and upon release it shook. He blinked and felt... then rubbed the heel of his left hand into one eye and noticed his cheek was wet. He'd no idea he'd been crying, or how long._  
_"Nothing. Everything's... I mean... just stepping out for some air," he ended weakly, heading for the front door._  
_"What? It's well below freezing," Papa said to his back. Freor drifted down the hall in a daze and opened the front door. A knife of frigid air_ snapped him out of sleep as he felt his father's hand on his shoulder.  
"Nain, what's the matter?" He still held Ivy in his right arm, cradled against his half-bare chest. Behind them the obs room window bled through the the cozy parlor at Bag End. Freor swallowed and looked away. He stared out over the fields and Hobbiton below, the blanket of snow pale blue in the moonlight. The wind had settled, but it was still bitterly cold. Papa was squeezing his shoulder with his free hand.  
"I'm all right, I just need a moment alone. The children are fine. I'll come back inside in a minute." The night monitor in the plate glass window watched him through the snow.  
Papa nodded. "All right." He patted Freor’s back and gave him another look, then took the baby back inside. Freor blinked rapidly as Bag End shimmered and disappeared. He was breathing heavily. This was new.

He sat up quickly and addressed the night monitor through the window. “That was longer, wasn’t it? Five, six hours?”  
“Oh.” The man seemed a little startled. “Let me…” He checked the clipboard and then the clock. “Five and a quarter. Congratulations.” He smiled. Freor had already earned himself a reputation at the clinic.  
“When’s Dr. Ross due back?”  
“Not ‘til this afternoon.”  
“Okay. I need to go, I’m taking my grandfather out for his birthday today. Can I borrow a pen and paper? I’ll leave her a note.”  
“Sure, but afterwards, it’s breakfast time. Stop at the caf on your way out, okay? According to this...” he tapped the clipboard- “You could really use a meal.”  
“Okay, thanks.”

* * *

Hoenir was delighted that his grandson had invited him to the Royal Museum for his birthday, but was a bit puzzled at the amount of time he wanted to spend in the elven classical art section. They were standing in front of an ancient painting of a royal wedding in late-Third-Age Gondor, and had been for a full five minutes. Hoenir was doing his best to understand the appeal.

So I suppose you’ve seen a fair bit in your time, eh Grandpa?” Freor continued to study the painting.  
“I suppose, but I’ve been lucky to live in peaceful times. Honestly I’m glad I don’t have war stories.”  
“Did you ever see Longseeker?”  
Hoenir blinked. “Longseeker?”  
“Yeah, the elf in the fairy tale.”  
“No, can’t say as I did.”  
“How would you know, though? If you’d seen him? This painting, for example. I know the label says that half these people are elves and half are men, but if it weren’t for their clothes I’d have a hard time telling which was which.”  
“Really? But the elves are taller.”  
“Not all of them.”  
“And their ears.”  
“Some of them are covered by their hair.”  
“Which is also that strange elf texture.”  
“My sleep doctor’s hair is almost like that, and she’s not so unusual. It’s not quite that flat, but it is pretty straight.”  
“And, as you say, their clothes.”  
“Anybody can wear anything. Maybe some of the ones we’re assuming are elves are actually men in elf clothes. This lady, for example. If you put Dr. Ross in that outfit she’d look like an elf, too.”  
Hoenir shook his head. “Maybe, but… I’ve always heard that elves were brighter.”  
Freor stepped back and tilted his head at the painting. “Hm. Well, yeah. You got me there.”  
“Though when I was a child my grandmother told me she saw him once.” Freor turned toward him, eyebrows up. “But that’s just something grandparents tell little ones, isn’t it? For fun? It’s romantic and mysterious, like claiming you saw Smaug’s ghost in the fog over Long Lake.”  
“You don’t think he exists?”  
“I think he probably did, at one time, but the story doesn’t make much sense. Why would an elf wander the world haunting dwarves?”  
Freor crossed to the next painting. Hoenir followed, and gazed at it, but couldn’t make any sense out of it, apart from that the people in it were elves. They appeared to be engaged in sport of some kind, or perhaps dancing. Freor said, “Maybe he likes us.”


	26. Unhasty Folk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, lilacs and apples would both be done blooming by June. Well, Leif's just that good a gardener. Deal.

F.A. 2063, June 3rd. Dale.

Freor climbed the eight steps up to Leif’s wide porch, where baskets of spider lilies hung in the sunshine and the lilac tree once again spilled blossoms over the rail. The porch swing was still, the bee on the doorknocker forever frozen mid-buzz. There was a new welcome mat before the door. It read “Pedo mellon a minno” in the Cirth, which Freor could make head nor tail of. He knocked, and waited. He hadn’t warned Leif he was coming. The elf could have been anywhere- grocery shopping, out with friends, hiking on the mountain, gardening ‘round the back- or just inside but with a student and not keen to be disturbed. Freor peered through the front window. It didn’t look like anyone was in the living room or the kitchen. He hopped back down the steps and went around to the back of the house.

The elf had made good on all his plans, as far as Freor could tell. He’d been around Leif’s garden enough to recognize that the fruit trees were indeed pruned, the raspberry canes freshly staked, and the strawberries weeded. There were peas already, and beds labeled lettuce, sorrel, rocket, and chives, chard and carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, beans and marrows and melon. And he’d strung an enormous hammock between two of the apple trees. If Freor hadn’t already thought himself in love, the sight of Leif’s garden - neat and steadfast and hopeful, joyous and loved and exactly as he’d described it in his letter - might have tipped him over. He scaled the back steps and looked in the kitchen window. No Leif. He knocked loudly, waited a minute, and then tried the knob. Unlocked. Typical. “Leif? You home? I knocked.” He stepped through the kitchen and into the living room with its comfortable clutter of instruments and books and tools and music. There was a vase of red tulips on the coffee table. Leif’s weekly teaching schedule was laid out on chart on the wall. It said “”Bundin - piano” in the Wednesday afternoon space, so Freor hoped that meant he had less than an hour to wait. He went to the hall bookshelf, chose A Field Guide To Northeast Mushrooms, and took it out to the porch swing to read while he waited for Leif to come home.

  


Neither elf nor dwarf said a word as Leif ascended his front steps. Freor closed the book and laid it on the railing. Leif crossed the porch and sat beside Freor on the swing.  
Freor said, “For the sake of productive argument, I think it’s time I approached this question from the perspective that it’s possible that it could be true.”  
“Mm. Might help.”  
“What did…” He stopped. “When we met, why did you think it was me? That I was him?”  
“I don’t have a satisfying answer for that. I've never understood _how_ I know, just that I do. I recognize his soul, or something. His eyes are always the same. Not the color, just… something.”  
“The nightmares I’ve been having... Dreams. They’re his memories. Aren’t they?”  
“Yes.”  
“Yet another thing you neglected to tell me.”  
“You’d have believed that even less than the rest of it.”  
Freor clenched his jaw briefly and reminded himself why he was here and what he was trying to accomplish. “I dreamt something so disturbing. But persuasive, too. I can’t believe… I need to hear your explanation.”  
“Are you sure? You tend not to like my explanations.”  
“And I doubt I’ll like this one, but I need to hear it anyway.”  
Leif nodded. “What was it?”  
“I dreamt I was someone who was experiencing just what I am now: He’d been dreaming. For months. Both bad and good, though where mine were mostly bad at first and then switched to mostly good, his were more of a mix. Some had been... very good indeed. I remembered them with him, and they were…” Freor stopped and breathed. “He’d never known joy like that his whole life- and he was three times my age already- nor imagined anything so intensely pleasurable. And as hard as I think this process is for me, it’s a cakewalk compared to what that poor soul had to deal with, because while he was awake, he thought himself evil, because he’d been dreaming those things about his own father.”

Leif tilted his head back and exhaled as he closed his eyes. “Nain.”  
“Yeah, that’s what you called him. Me.”  
The elf just nodded slightly.  
“What the hell, Leif?”  
Legolas crossed his arms before his chest. “Yes, that was difficult. Nain was just a toddler when I found him, living with a widower father who beat him. There was no way I wasn’t going to get him out of that situation immediately. I tried to find foster parents for him, but his right hand was severely crippled, and at that time that made him unadoptable, at least by dwarves. Eventually I found some kind people in the Shire who wanted to take him in- thank Mahal- and I did my best to leave most of the practical parenting to them, but by that time I’d already been caring for him as my son for two years. The bond was made.”  
“And you knew even then that one day he’d start dreaming about sex with you. With his father.”  
Leif frowned. “I knew it was possible. The incarnation before Buri had never remembered so I knew Nain might not either. But yes. It seemed particularly perverse of Mahal- because I don’t know who else to blame- to throw the sex dreams into the mix so early. More often the pattern is like yours- mostly bad and later mostly good. But under those circumstances… But I’d still have done it even if I’d known he was guaranteed to one day dream something so horrifying, because it was the best choice I had. He was- and in some ways is still and always will be- my son. But he was not-my-son for a thousand years before that, and the lives where he remembers are immeasurably happier for both of us. We live through the growing pains.”  
“I live through the growing pains. You watch.”  
“And how did you feel when you had to watch me in pain?”  
Freor thought about that. He remembered Leif weeping beside a gravestone for hours. He dropped his head and shut his eyes. “My stomach hurt for days.”

Leif laid his left hand on Freor’s shoulder. “I am sorry, though. I’ve done a lot of choosing the least of the evils.” Freor didn’t look up. “You’ve lived a very long time. It hasn’t all been good. It won’t all be good.” Leif leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “But some of it will be fantastic.” He sat back again. “And incidentally, just so you have some perspective, Buri was hale and happy and energetic ‘til the day he dropped dead of a heart attack, and his appetite for me even unto the last was impressive even by elven standards. He’d been dead less than a decade when I found him riding around in poor little Nain, broken and terrified. It’s an odd life. I’m still figuring it out.”

Freor looked up, straight ahead at the porch wall. Leif was watching him, but he ignored it. “I’ve been sleeping better. Well enough that I think I can go back to work.”  
“In Drinsburg?”  
“No. Oinir says I can come back to The Bellows part-time. They can always use the help.”  
Freor heard footsteps on the sidewalk, and a moment later a girl clattered up the porch steps. “Hi Mr. Green.”  
“Hi Bundin, this is my friend Mr. Frorsson.” Freor stood and shook her hand. “Will you go in and get the piano ready? I’ll be in in a minute. Help yourself to lemonade.”  
“Okay, thanks.” She plunked through the door, shutting it behind her.  
Dwarf and elf faced one another. “Good student?”  
“Average. Nice kid, though. Funny.” He smiled. “This will take 45 minutes. Will you stay so we can talk more later? You’re welcome to make yourself at home.”  
Freor nodded. “Okay.”  
Leif smiled. “Good.” He followed Bundin inside.

Freor retrieved the mushroom book from the railing, hopped down the front steps and around the house to the back garden, and settled into the hammock. It was huge. Hildis, Sindri, and a mastiff could all have fit in it with him.

* * *

_Freor looks down at his feet. Soft, warm sand squishes up between his toes and his legs are bare below the knee. The hair even there has begun to go white. His gaze drifts up past sunbathers and the shimmering strand to a blue horizon flocked with whitecaps and the trim sails of fishing boats. The ocean is a color he’d thought only occurred in gemstones- a blue bluer than most northerners thought possible. The breeze is warm and the sun high. White birds run in the surf. Freor is nervous, but he’d promised long ago to let the elf teach him to swim, so here they are together, finally, walking side by side into the Bay of Belfalas. He can feel Leif’s tension vibrate the air between them, and reaches out to take his hand. “It’s calling you.”_

_Leif's eyes are wide and bright, locked due west. He squeezes Freor’s fingers. “Yes.” Freor watches him listen and wishes he could hear the voice, the song, the divine invitation, the whatever-it-is that threatens to pull his elven heart apart. Leif shakes himself and smiles down at him. “Never mind. Let’s go swimming!” He takes off running straight for the bay and Freor chases after. When they reach the water there’s a momentary shock of cold, but he’s surprised at how quickly his body adjusts. They wade in up to Freor’s waist and soon it’s comfortable as bathwater. Leif drops down and sits on the bottom, the surface lapping at his neck. Freor bends and kisses him, long and slow. Leif grabs the dwarf’s furry middle and pulls him farther down into the water so their heads are level. Their hair floats in a shining ring around them, half smooth seaweed and half bubbling foam. Leif pulls his mouth away a fraction and whispers, “Don’t let me swim away.” Freor wraps both arms around him and kisses his forehead. “No fear. Not until you’ve taught me how to follow you, at any rate.”_

_They spend the afternoon there in the shallows, splashing and floating and concentrating and laughing. After an hour Freor thinks that if he fell out of a boat he at least wouldn’t drown immediately, but knows the water will never feel like home. It was as unnatural a dwarf habitat as a treetop. Leif loves it though, and Freor loves watching him there: pale and sleek as a fish, strong and playful as an otter. Later something on the southern horizon catches his elf eyes and he points. “Look.”_

_Freor follows his finger and sees a long shape break the surface, leap into the air, and splash down again in a graceful arc. Two more follow it, and they watch the trio chase one another several more times before they disappear. Freor loves them immediately. “What are they?”_  
_“Dolphins, I think.”_  
_“Dolphins.” He stares at the space where they were. “Gray and smooth as polished stone.”_  
_“Someday I’ll have to go, Gimli.” His voice is suddenly different. Anxious and sorrowful. Freor’s eyes_ open. Apple blossoms bob on the surface of the sea. “Someday soon. The call-”  
Freor cuts him off. “I know, Legolas.” Watercolor Leif seems to be there with him in the hammock, just to his left. He lays a hand on his cheek. “It’s okay, Love, I’ve always known.”  
Solid Leif appeared suddenly, distorted, as the dream faded away. Freor realized the elf was sitting on the ground next to the hammock and they were peering at one another through the mesh. “What have you always known?”  
Freor swallowed. “Lesson over?”  
“Half an hour ago. Thought I’d let you sleep.”  
“Thanks.” Freor reached up and pulled the side of the hammock down so he could look over it. Leif was stretched out on the grass, propped up on his elbows. Beautiful as fire, tender as water, necessary as air, and underneath layers more beautiful still. “Will you join me in the hammock?”

Leif grinned, then dropped his elbows and lay flat, gazing up at the sky. “Yes, but you should know that it’s visible from the upstairs windows of at least one set of neighbors and maybe more. Are you prepared to be a scandal?” Freor flopped back into the net and looked up into the neighbors’ windows. The curtains were drawn. He watched the apple blossoms quiver. “No. Not yet, but I need to get there, since it’s inevitable now. Actually that’s part of why I came over today. I want to talk to you about it.”

Leif went from supine to standing in one fluid motion, but Freor saw only the result, which was the elf towering over him with one hand outstretched. “Shall we go inside?”

  


Freor crossed to the kitchen table and sat. Leif remained standing, just inside the door. “Okay, listen. I think I want… I mean clearly I do, but it’s absurd. I’m leagues away from trusting this. And for months I’ve been fighting… It just doesn’t make sense.”  
“Not from your perspective, no. Does it need to?”  
“Of course! You know dwarves, or so you claim.”  
Leif nodded. “Mm. I don’t think I can make it make sense for you. And what I’m about to say isn’t a dare or rhetorical, it’s an honest question. Which is: What is it about the idea of trusting this- me or you or us or whatever ‘this’ is- that makes it untenable? What do you think might happen?”  
“That’s just it- I’m too young to know what it is I don’t know. I’m sure there are whole categories of heartbreak that I don’t even know exist. And you... I can’t really fathom what you are, who you are...” Leif nodded again and leaned against the doorframe. “...But.”  
The elf waited, calm as ever. Freor scratched his beard, considering him. The next part was hard and he was in no hurry to tackle it. The silence stretched. Eventually Leif said, “Well, you’re right: Your heart might get broken. So might mine. We would start clear-eyed and with the best of intentions and it might happen anyway. And when it happens, it’s awful. It’s extraordinarily painful.” Leif held his eyes and did not smile.  
“But?”  
“No ‘but.’ I can’t sugarcoat heartbreak. I can’t promise you we’ll never hurt one another. In fact I can promise you that we _will_ , on occasion. Unintentionally, of course, but it will happen. That’s just how life is. But I’ve survived heartbreak more than once and I’m okay. You will be, too."

Freor blinked at him from across the room. “Wow. You… wow. Is that supposed to be encouraging?”  
“It’s supposed to be the whole truth, which you’ve been upset with me for keeping from you, and quite rightly so.” Freor stared at the floor, eyes wide. Legolas almost regretted his frankness. “I should have just joined you in the hammock.”  
A rueful grin snuck over the dwarf’s downturned face. “Yeah. Well, that’s what I was getting to. ‘I can’t fathom who you are, but’: My body’s beginning to change. I saw you one time in ten months- _one_ \- and it’s happening anyway. I can’t stop it, I sure as hell can’t ignore it, and I’m not prepared to wait another forty years until it’s socially acceptable- not that it would be even then since you’re not a dwarf- so sooner or later scandal will come to me whether I’m prepared for it or not. My family will read it in my face. I don’t know if it would be better to try to explain it to them beforehand or just... let them see. The second option’s tempting because I don’t know how I’d even bring it up.”

“It might be less of a problem than you think. A) Heid likes me already. What worries dwarves about men is the non-monogamy, and I’m not a man. She’ll probably be delighted that her son found someone so devoted to him. Besides, I’m quite sure she wouldn’t rather have you walk your life alone. And B) It can’t happen before it should, right? That’s impossible. Your family knows that. Plus, you are legally an adult. People don’t usually marry so young, but you’re within your rights."

Freor resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “And C) What century are you from? They’ll think I’m mentally ill. Dangerously deluded. I’ve been in a mannish sleep clinic for weeks, remember? I have a psychiatrist.”  
“Oh, and D) Hildis already suspects.”  
“What?”  
“Not that I’m an elf, but she told me that you admitted to her that you had a crush on me, and finding me in your bed did nothing to quiet her concern.”  
“What are you talking about?”  
“At your house, three weeks ago, when you were asleep. She stuck her head in to check on you and there we were. She explained to me why it was a bad idea for me to be in your bed.”  
Freor blinked rapidly several times. “How on earth does that count as D)?”  
“It would be a way to bring it up.”  
“I… suppose. Not my first choice, though. But you must have done something like this in the past; how did we deal with it then?  
“Something _like_ this, yes, but not quite this. You’ve never had the desire so well ahead of… traditional marriageability. It’s also possible that E), you might regain true memory before you reach the point where they’ll see it for themselves. That would definitely make things easier for you.”  
“How likely do you think that is, considering the timeframe?”  
“I really don’t know. And speculating would probably be counter-productive. But F): we could also go away somewhere until you remember, so your family wouldn’t have the opportunity to read it in your face beforehand.”  
“But you don’t know how long that might be.”  
“No.”  
“Then let’s leave that as the back-up plan. If we can’t figure out a better one.”  
“One time we made a chart.”  
“What?”  
“To try to solve the problem of how we tell Gimli’s family.”  
“A chart?”  
“I’m serious. It was a good idea. It helped.”  
“A chart of what?”  
Possible courses of action, advantages and disadvantages, feared consequences, desired outcomes. Stuff like that.”  
“That’s… bonkers.”  
“It was your idea.”


	27. A Kinder Fate

FA 2063, June 3rd. Dale. (An hour later.)

Freor leaned heavily against Leif’s kitchen table, fingers hooked over the edge and elbows locked. Leif sat in a chair just to his left. Strewn about the table were sheets of paper color-coded with wax crayon and liberally marked with the elf’s flowing script and the dwarf’s blocky hand.  
“Okay, you made your point.”  
“Helped, didn’t it?”  
“It’s still bonkers.”  
“Buuuut…”  
“Yes, fine, it helped.”  
“Thank you. I’ll tell the earlier you that you like your system.”  
Freor chewed his lip. “It won’t be pleasant.”  
“They might surprise you.”  
“Mom, maybe. Hild’s going to feel like you lied to her. Which you did.”  
“Not… technically.”  
“Thirty-five hundred is not ‘about forty-five’.”  
“Well, you could just let them see it in your face. Nothing they can really say, after the fact.”  
“No. Like I said, if I hide this from them they’ll be even less disposed to accept us. Besides, Hild’s going back to Drinsburg soon. She’s already used up her paid leave, now they’re just letting her coast because I’m a family emergency. Plus I refuse to act like I’m ashamed of something.”  
“So you will court a man publicly? Men are wolves. The dwarf who keeps one-”  
“Should have kept an elf, instead.”  
Legolas grinned. “And you weren’t prepared to be a scandal.”  
“That was hours ago. Before the chart.”

Leif looked up at him. Freor could feel it, but kept his eyes on the paper. He said, “Seems a waste of my decision to be a scandal to then not engage in anything scandalous.” He felt the elf’s right hand come to rest on his hip. “So. How do we deal with you being six feet tall?”  
Leif pushed his chair back from the table, spread his knees, reached for both Freor’s hands, and pulled him forward until his legs bumped the front edge of the seat. “Six-one. And this.” He slid both hands up Freor’s sides to his ribs and tugged him forward until their faces were inches apart. “Among other things.”  
Freor leaned in and slid his cheek along Leif’s jawline, then dropped his forehead and buried his eyes in the elf’s neck. Leif drew one hand slowly from his ribs up over his chest and around to his nape. With the hand on his neck and its thumb under his cheekbone Leif coaxed Freor’s face into the open. His intent was clear.  
“Last time- “  
Leif stopped, his lips an inch from Freor’s. “Last time?”  
“What else haven’t you told me?”  
Leif stroked his cheek. “So much. But you know all the significant parts now, save one. At least all the parts that I think are significant. He might disagree.”  
“You know you have to tell me the ‘save one’.”  
“I’d prefer to wait and have that conversation with Gimli. When he wakes up.”  
“Nope, you gotta tell me. We have too many trust issues already.”  
Leif released him and nodded. “Let’s go sit on the couch.”

  


“First, keep in mind that I have zero doubt that I’ve been with him every time, even those times when he never remembered anything at all.”  
“Because you recognize his soul. And eyes.” Freor couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm out of his tone. Not that he tried very hard.  
“He, on the other hand, frequently doubts it. But there’s nothing in the world easier to understand or forgive.” Freor snorted. “The last significant thing that I haven’t told you is that your immediate predecessor didn’t just not remember, he wasn’t even my friend.”  
Freor’s smirk fled. “Oh. Wow, how did you cope with that?”  
“Not very well, I’m afraid. That was difficult.”  
“Did he love someone else?”  
“No, not that. I doubt Gimli’s soul sleeping inside would have let him. It wasn’t a problem that he was married to his work; what hurt was that he didn’t seem to have any feeling for me at all, good or bad. He couldn’t even seem to muster dislike after I did something that should have changed his opinion of me. Because he apparently _had_ no opinion. It was like he couldn’t see me. I was, at best, a friend of a friend. And when that friend died he grieved as I did, but there was no… sharing. Of grief. Or anything. And I don’t know why.”  
“What did you do? I mean that should have changed his opinion?”  
“Oh. Well… when he was well into middle age and I’d given up hope that he’d remember, I got drunk and barged into his house and kissed him. I don’t normally pay much attention to dates, but Gimli did, and it seemed cruelly unfair that he was going to miss our two-thousandth anniversary.”  
Freor lifted his hands and studied them, turning them over slowly. “I… dreamt that.”  
“Did you?”  
“Egil.” He swallowed. “I thought- he thought- you were cousin Egil’s mad friend.”  
A slow smile worked its way across Leif’s face. “And I smiled when you were angry at me the other day because I knew that that won’t be our fate this time around. We wouldn’t have been having that conversation at all if you hadn’t already started to remember.” Freor covered the lower half of his face with one hand, eyes wide. “And now that you know, imagine how I felt that day three years ago when I got a letter from you asking me to teach you tin whistle.”  
Freor kicked off his shoes and pulled his feet up, squishing them between the sofa cushions. “But I don’t remember.”  
“I know.”  
“The dreams are convincing while I’m having them, but they’re not _memory_. Not mine, anyway. I’m just watching them, not… personally connected. When I’m awake I don’t remember being anyone besides Freor.”  
“I know. I have no complaints. I like Freor very much. And that’s how it usually happens: first bad dreams, then good, then real memory.”

Freor turned and looked out Leif’s livingroom window. The late evening sun slanted into his eyes and he squinted. “This isn’t how I expected my life to go.”  
“I’d have been extremely surprised if you had.”  
“Among what other things?”  
“Pardon?”  
“Do we do about you being six-foot-one?”  
“Oh.” Leif breathed in, and out, and turned his body sideways so that his back was leaning against the far arm of the sofa and his legs extended to where they bumped into Freor’s thigh. “This couch, for starters.” He indicated the narrow space between his right hip and the sofa back with his right hand- “One knee here,” - and the space between his left hip and the edge of the couch with his left- “And the other here.”

Freor needed no convincing. He climbed over the elf’s legs and straddled his lap, and saw immediately that it both neatly solved the problem of their height difference, and put much of their bodies into contact. Freor settled against his chest, and Leif stroked both hands from his knees up over his hips and back and into his hair. Warmth spread through him as they breathed together.  
Freor said, “Wow. You’re really comfortable.” Leif chuckled. “And you feel good when you laugh.”  
“How I have missed you.”  
“I know there’s nothing I can say that you haven’t heard from him countless times before, but I love the way you smell. Like warm bread.”  
“Doesn’t matter how often. That never gets old.”  
“I looked up ‘hervenn’.”  
“Did you?”  
“That must have been a weird day for you.”  
Leif laughed again and it sent a ripple of pleasure through Freor. “Indeed. That had never happened before. Seeing the translation must have made a weird day for _you._ ”  
“For years my subconscious has been calling you ‘husband’ in a language I don’t understand. Thanks a lot, brain. I was so freaked out that I might know your name. It never occurred to me that you might know mine.”  
“Of course not; how could I? And I know I insisted it wasn’t possible that you did, but, obviously, I knew it was. You could have dreamt that just as easily as anything else. You’ve no idea how relieved I was. I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d said my name. I couldn’t have hidden how much hearing you say it affected me. I might have kissed you, or wept… probably both. Which would have been quite disturbing, at least.”  
“You do know mine, though.”  
“Yes.”  
“You and Gimli… shared them. Ceremonially.”  
“Mm. More than once.”  
“Mine’s the same every time?”  
“Oh yes. You’re still you. Always the same soul.”  
“I don’t know yours. That’s like parent and child, not... partners.”  
“Quite. Our friendship endures these strange periods of inequality. You can’t remember, and I can’t forget.”

Freor nodded, at a loss. It was so very, very strange. He hadn’t dreamt a wedding, but he’d come to the point where he’d stopped doubting it was true. He sat very still for three heartbeats, and then slipped his mouth into Leif’s, easy as breath.


	28. Staunch Defender

F.A. 2063, June 12th. The Kingdom under the Mountain

“Hildis, do you remember the conversation we had right before I asked if I could come live with you in Drinsburg?”  
Her eyes narrowed. “Yyyyyes.”  
Heid turned to look at her elder daughter, wondering at her tone. Clearly Hildis knew something Heid didn’t.  
“Well… I haven’t been ill in one of the mannish ways. It turns out I’ve been ill in a particularly dwarvish kind of way. All the nightmares in Drinsburg, all the trouble sleeping…” Freor looked each member of his family in the eye in turn. Hildis looked suspicious, Heid worried, and Sindri just curious. “...It’s because I’ve been separated from my beloved.”  
They stared at him blankly.  
“I’m in love.”  
Heid: “What?”  
Sindri: “Huh? You can’t be. That's impossible.”  
“No, what’s impossible would be for me to be going through second puberty- which I am- without being in love.”  
Hildis: “Green! Mahal, I KNEW it! What kind of sick monster makes a dwarf child fall in love with him?!”  
“I’m not a child.”  
Heid: “Oh no. Oh my sweet boy.”  
Sindri: “Freor, you’ve been under a lot of strain recently, maybe…”  
“Yes, I have. And now that I know why, it’s very much better.”  
Hildis: “Child or not, you’ll only have another fifty years with him- at most- if you’re lucky!”  
Heid: “It can’t last.” She looked stricken.  
“Of course not. That’s the nature of happiness.”  
Hildis: “You can’t be sure it’s second puberty. It could be anything. We’ll take you to a doctor.”  
“Okay.”  
Hildis’s eyebrows went up. “Okay?”  
“Sure, take me to a doctor.”  
Heid crossed over to him and pulled him into a massive hug. “Don’t worry, Honey. We’ll get this sorted out.”  
“Okay, thanks Mom. I’m not worried. It’ll be okay.”

* * *

“Mr. Frorsson?”

Freor, Hildis, Heid and Sindri all looked up at the doctor at same moment. He’d only been gone ten minutes. He’d said it was simple test, but they’d expected it to take more time than that.

“Yes?”

“Good news: no problems. You’re metabolically normal and all your levels are good. Though you are hormonally advanced, for your age. Congratulations, it’s second puberty. So who’s the lucky dwarf?”

Heid buried her face in both hands.  
Hildis got up from her chair and stalked down the corridor.  
Sindri said, “Huh.”  
Freor smiled to himself and said, “Me."

* * *

F.A. 2063, June 12th. The Kingdom under the Mountain

“Heid, I owe you- all of you, and I wish Fror were here so I could thank him, too- a debt I can never repay. It’s an old tale, but probably not one you ever gave much thought to. Please bear with me. There is one elf still who haunts dwarvish lands. He lived here Under the Mountain in the time of King Barin, and now wanders Middle-earth from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills, always seeking.”

Heid regarded Green warily. He looked her right in the eye. Her gaze traveled from him to Hildis, whose jaw was set in barely-contained anger; to Sindri, who shrugged; then to Freor, who returned her gaze calmly; and then back to Green. “Oh-kaaay,” she said slowly. “Seeking what?”  
She waited, but Leif didn’t respond.  
And then from the armchair across the room Freor said, “Me.”  
She turned to look at her son. He was smiling, his eyes bright. She turned back to Green and discovered that suddenly he looked altogether different. And the same. He was still the man who’d given her boy music lessons and celebrated Durin’s Day and Yule with her family, but he’d become taller without growing, his features had sharpened without changing shape, and his skin had paled without changing color. Then he reached up and pushed his hair behind his ears, and she saw their impossible shape. He looked like something out of a book of old fairy tales, or a painting in the Royal Museum. Of an elf. He said, “Today you have lived to be as old as grandfather.”

Hildis gaped, then blurted, “You said you were forty-five.”  
“You said that. I let you believe it because the truth is unbelievable.  
Heid said, “But... the elves all went over sea.”  
“Yes, we did. I came back.”  
Sindri crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Prove it.”  
Green’s eyebrows rose. “Prove it? I don’t know that I can. What proof would you like? Oh, here- people tend to like this.” He held out his left hand and a ball of light appeared in it. It grew until it filled the room with brightness. The family blinked at one another. The light faded and the room returned to normal.  
Sindri said, “Magic trick.”  
“I suppose, but I don’t know how I do it. It’s just natural to me. And every other elf who ever lived.”  
Heid turned to her son. “Freor... do you believe him?”  
“I didn’t at first. I do now. Not fifty years, Hild. He’ll outlive me.”  
Hildis glared at Leif. “You cast a spell on my brother.”  
Freor sighed audibly. “He really didn’t. I can make my own choices. I’ve loved him for a long time.” 

* * *

F.A. 2063, June 20th. The Kingdom Under the Mountain.

Hildis Heidsdottir stared down at her father’s grave for the first time in a year. Her mother stood beside her, quiet and stoic as usual. Sindri and Uncle Frerin wove complicated patterns in small stones over the grave. Holde and Hoenir were a few yards away, decorating Hildis’s great-grandfather’s grave. Freor stood a little way off, Leif Geen by his side. Hildis supposed she’d adjust to that sight eventually, but it hadn’t happened yet. Green wasn’t her brother-in-law, but she couldn’t deny any longer that he likely would be soon. Freor’s heart was set. And all she could do, really, was hope. Hope that Green was what he said he was. Hope he could give Freor the life he wanted, for as long he wanted it. Freor stepped away from Green and came closer to them. “Mom, can I talk to Hildis for a minute?”  
“Sure, Honey.” Heid patted her son’s hand.

Once they were out of earshot Freor said, “I’ll miss you. And I’ll miss living with you in Drinsburg. And I’ll miss that picture of Dad you drew. The one over the sofa.” Hildis nodded and looked at her feet. “And I’ll write, and I’ll come visit.” Freor grasped her arm above the elbow and squeezed. “But I won’t come alone.”

She turned to look back to where Green was chatting with their mother and nodded. “I know, it’s okay. I’m just not… used to the idea yet. But hey, I’ve got plenty of time for that, right? I mean even if…” she trailed off, then stroked her beard, thinking. She nodded. “Even if he dies tomorrow, a blind person could see that he loves you today.”


	29. Nothing Strange, Only New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The first dream in this chapter is lifted from Adina's [Chamber of Lovers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829271).
> 
> 2\. The last dream is lifted from Return of the King.

F.A. 2063, mid-July. Dale.

_"It is beautiful," Freor whispered._

_"Aye." There was a strange note in Leif's voice, as if he would say more. Freor looked up at him and saw a sight more beautiful than any rock. The elf's eyes shone with longing, color painted his normally fair cheeks. Freor turned back to the pillar to see what had brought him to the blush. The white stone formed a tall, fair figure, embracing a shorter, darker figure in gold, caressing each other with limbs entwined. He felt his cheeks warm in turn as fire flooded his body. He thought he had known desire, but that was only a pale echo of what he felt now. This was what he had been waiting for, that urgency of which his elders refused to speak._

_He tugged Leif further into the chamber and took the lantern from his unresisting hand. Setting both lanterns on a convenient shelf of rock, he unpinned his cloak, setting the leaf broach beside the lanterns and spreading his cloak on the smooth, dry sand at the foot of the pillar. He reached up for the clasp on Leif's cloak only to find his hands caught in Leif's. The elf knelt, bringing their heads on a level with one another._

_"I do not--" Leif started to speak, his voice shaking. Freor freed a hand and laid a finger on Leif’s lips to silence him. Leif had waited so long, banking his desire until it could be matched by Freor's own, and must still fear to rush him._

_"No," he said. "You have been patient with me. But now--" He laughed, dizzy with joy. "Now is the time! An hour ago would have been too soon, an hour from now--" He blushed. "Torture."_

_Leif chuckled and let his hands fall, letting Freor unpin his broach and set it aside, before spreading his own cloak beside Freor’s. Freor pushed Leif down onto this improvised bower. The elf fell, seemingly casually, into a pose calculated to inflame the blood._

_Freor chuckled. "A pretty picture, my friend. Perhaps I should carve a statue for posterity." He knelt beside his love. "But alas. I have more...pressing...business."_

_Leif laughed and pulled him down for a kiss. "You are cruel, Master Dwarf," he whispered when they drew apart for breath. Freor said nothing as he brought his hand to Leif's face, mapping eyes and lips and brows. Leif closed his eyes and Freor lightly brushed his fingers over his lids. The elven features were sharper, more finely cut than any dwarf's. Freor bent over him and kissed the tip of his nose, then traced one fine, fair eyebrow with his tongue. Leif growled; Freor relented and kissed his mouth again._

_They had kissed before: slow, thorough explorations in Ithilien and Gondor. Leif's tongue insinuated itself into his mouth. The intensity of tongue on tongue_ woke him, his eyes blinking open, only to snap shut again against the glare. Eyes closed, he felt dream-Leif’s arms snake around him, clutching at the back of his jerkin, attempting to pull him closer. He pulled both hands up to shield his eyes from the bright sun and felt the netting beneath him as he shifted, and remembered where he was. He wanted to laugh with joy. “You have too many clothes on,” he said quietly, chuckling as he slowly removed his fingers, letting his eyes adjust to the brightness. He realized the sunshine was diffused by the yellow umbrella, which Leif had apparently contrived to hang above the hammock, on a… clothesline? The elf strode toward him in broad-brimmed hat and gardening gloves. “What was that?”  
Freor blinked up at him. “What’s with the umbrella?”  
“Didn’t want you getting a sunburn, mister lilywhite cave-dweller. Did you say I have too many clothes on?”  
Freor swallowed. “Yeah, but I didn’t mean to. It was left over from a dream.”  
Leif cocked his head to the side, studying him. “A good dream, I take it.” Freor nodded, swallowing again. “Glad to hear it. A bad dream where I’m wearing too many clothes simply would not do.” Leif removed his gloves, reached into the hammock, and took his hand.  
Freor squeezed it. “What happened next?”  
“When?”  
“In the dream. Memory, I mean. You were there at the time, so you know what happened next.”  
“Oh. Well, it could have been lots of things. Where were we?”  
“In a cave. There was a stone column- half white and half yellow.”  
“Ah. Exploring, were we?”  
“Yes. Well, more kissing than exploring. I put our lanterns down, we took off our cloaks, you lay on the floor, and I knelt down next to you.”  
Leif’s eyes danced as he tangled his fingers in Freor’s. “And?”  
Freor stroked his free hand up the elf’s bare forearm. “And then I woke up.”

Leif tsked in mock disappointment and then rolled into the hammock beside him, dropping his hat on the grass in the process. Freor scooted over to give him room and they settled against one another. “I don’t remember all the details; it was quite a long time ago. But we definitely solved the excess clothing problem.”  
“And then?”  
Leif turned his head and looked down into Freor’s face, eyes a bit wide. They were very close. “And then we made love.”  
“Right, I figured, but… how?”  
“I…” Leif blinked twice. “You want a description?”  
Freor leaned in and kissed his throat. “Actually I think I want you to show me.”  
Leif wrapped both arms around him and held him tightly against his chest. He breathed deeply and then whispered, “How are you even real?”  
Freor kissed his chest through his shirt. “Mmm. You smell like warm bread again.”  
Leif chuckled. “You don’t say.”  
Freor glanced up. “Meaning?”  
“Meaning how could I not?”  
Freor frowned, brows squishing together. “Why? You don’t smell like that all the time.”  
“No, just when you’re being inspiring.”  
Freor dropped his face again and nuzzled him, pressing kisses into his breastbone. Then he stopped and looked up, shaking his head, clearly still baffled. “What are you talking about?”  
Leif let his hands wander over the dwarf’s back and down to his waistband. “Oh. No, of course you wouldn’t… make the connection.” He slipped his hands inside Freor’s shirt and rested them at the small of his back. “This is how lust smells on me.”

Freor stopped and looked into his face, then sat up. He stared straight ahead, not really seeing the yew hedge that separated Leif’s back garden from the neighbors'. He opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, and shut it again. He turned to look down at Leif beside him. “Lust makes you smell like bread?”  
Leif’s fingers trailed over the fur at his waist. “Mm hm.”  
“You wanted me at my father’s funeral?”  
Leif bit his lower lip as the lightbulb came on. “Ah. Well, I suppose I did, yes. In my defense, it was the first time I’d held you in nearly three hundred years. Besides, have you _seen_ you?”

Freor stared at him for a long moment, then said, “It’s a damn good thing it’s been a few years since Dad died or I wouldn’t be able to laugh at that. And I was only thirty-eight.” He lowered himself back down into the elf’s arms and Leif held him. “Oh. Oh!”  
“What?”  
Freor laughed. “Of course.”  
“What is it?”  
“The second time I noticed that smell was when I whispered “Hervenn” into your ear.”  
Leif nodded, smiling, which meant his cheek brushed Freor’s crown. “Ah. Listen, I can imagine nothing more wonderful than showing you, but I’m well-versed in how dwarven desire operates and this is… Are you sure you’re ready?”  
Freor thought about that. “Ready? Huh. I guess I don’t really know. How would I tell?”

Legolas resisted the urge to unbutton Freor’s shirt. “You will feel different than you ever have before. Something like hunger, but it will be for me rather than food. And while we’re on the subject, you’ll smell different, too. You won’t notice, but I will, and when I do I'll have a difficult time keeping my hands off you. Not that you’ll want me to.” He dipped his nose into Freor’s collar and breathed him in. Centuries upon generations of Gimlis filled his mind, smelling just like that, and it was all he could do not to slip a hand into Freor’s trousers right then and there and neighbors be damned. But it was not how he smelled when desire was on him. He pressed one kiss into Freor’s collarbone- the fuzz there tickling his lips- before pulling away. A younger, less experienced Legolas might have whimpered.  
Freor said, “So… what? I have to just wait around until you decide to jump me?”  
“Hardly. Just until _you_ know it’s time to jump _me._ ”  
The dwarf’s face remained still, except that his nostrils briefly flared. “So,” he said, hooking his ankle over Legolas’, “What would happen if we tried before I was…” Freor slid his right hand down the elf’s torso until it came to rest on his thigh. “...Ready?”  
Legolas cleared his throat. “Well, your body won’t respond.”  
Freor whispered just against his throat, breath gusting warm on the elf’s skin. “Judging by how good you smell I’d say yours is responding enough for both of us.”  
“Surely your parents explained…” He swallowed. He was having a hard time completing thoughts. Freor was rubbing his thigh and ghosting lips and nose over his neck.  
“What, that I won’t get hard?”  
Legolas swallowed again. “Yes.” He couldn’t decide how to react to this.  
“So? You obviously can.” Freor slid his hand toward the elf’s crotch but Legolas caught and held it. He pulled away an inch.  
“Dear heart, you couldn’t have an orgasm.”  
The dwarf widened his eyes and waggled his head in mock exasperation. “So? You obviously can. Besides, you ever test that theory?”  
Legolas shook his head, confounded. “Eight lifetimes and still you surprise me.”  
“I want to try. And I don’t care if I can’t- we’ll have plenty of time for that later. Let’s do _you_ now.” He checked himself, realizing how that sounded. “I mean, if you want to.”  
“I do, but… I feel a bit monstrous leching on someone so young.”  
“Do you? Or is just that you think you ought to? Because by some accounts we’ve been married for a couple thousand years. And by others you’ve been hot for this specific me for at least four.”  
“Don’t you want to be able to participate fully?”  
“In what universe would sucking you off not be considered full participation?” The elf’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Come on, let’s go inside.” Freor climbed over him and out of the hammock. He extended an unnecessary hand.  
Legolas gaped up at him but took the hand. “In the very recent past a dwarf your age would be decades away from even encountering that concept.”  
Freor snorted. “I lived in a mining town, remember?”  
Legolas exited the hammock, and with far more grace than Freor thought a person of his tremendous height had any right to. “That’s not enough of an explanation, but I guess it means I know who to thank.”

* * *

The elf’s bedroom door was shut, as usual. It occurred to Freor that he’d never seen inside it. In the time of music lessons and kitchen-painting and Scrabble games their interactions had never presented him any reason to venture in, and he’d never seen the door just left open. In fact he wasn’t even sure this was the bedroom until just now, as they stood before it. Could have been a closet, for all he knew. Or a… what other kinds of rooms did people have? A workshop. A gym. A secret, indoor pool.  
“There’s an old elven tradition.”  
“Yes?”  
“For such occasions.”  
“Which is?”  
“That the host carries the guest over the bedroom threshold.”  
“Really?” Freor rolled his eyes. “How sweet.”  
Leif turned the knob and pushed the door open. Freor found the room rather like its owner: neat, pale, relaxed, comfortable. The bed was tall, and one long side- long enough to accommodate two dwarves end-to-end- was against the far wall. The elf then grasped one of his wrists, knelt down, leaned his shoulder into Freor’s middle, and lifted him up potato-sack style.  
“Hey!”, Freor yelled, laughing, “Cut it out!”  
“The tradition doesn’t specify method-” Leif carried him into the room and over to the bed, and plopped them both down on it. “...But I concede that mine is unusual.”  
Freor lay where he’d been put, supine on the bed, grinning up at the elf looking down at him, propped up on an elbow. “You are one hundred percent loony, Leif Green.”  
“Yet here we are despite it.”  
“Because of it.”  
“You can’t imagine how lucky you make me feel.”  
“I s’pose not. I’m glad you’re happy.”  
Leif reached out and pulled Freor’s long braid from behind him. “Would you mind if I undid this?”  
“Go ahead.” The elf pulled the elastic cord from the end and tossed it onto the dresser, then gently unravelled the end of the braid with his fingers. “So this is where you sleep?”  
“Mm. When the weather’s warm I often sleep in the hammock, or on the roof.”  
“Isn’t the roof uncomfortable? And steep?”  
“No, there’s a deck up there. A flat place, anyway. No railing, so it’s not obvious from the ground.” The braid was all undone, but Leif continued to draw his fingers through Freor’s long hair.  
“Will you show it to me later?”  
“Sure. I’m afraid we missed the solstice fireworks, but there’s always next year.” Leif scooted even closer to him, lifted the heavy mane away from his neck, and leaned in and pressed his mouth into softness. He breathed in- struck by the scent- and was lost.  
Freor said, “Did I mention I’m feeling a little different?” 

 

He held the elf’s head and pulled it gently away from his neck, sat up, transferred hands to his shoulders, and pushed. “Lie down.” Leif obeyed. Freor shifted onto his knees, drew a leg up, straddled the elf, and settled onto his lap. Leif’s left hand came up to support the dwarf’s back as he sat up again and attached his mouth to Freor's throat. He inhaled sharply, and managed to say through shaking breath, “So tell me, how do I smell?” Four seconds later his shirt was all unbuttoned and he couldn’t fathom how Leif had managed it with only one hand.

The elf dragged his lips down through Freor’s thatch to his chest, kissing all he found there. When he was able to steel himself enough to climb out of the nest he reached for Freor’s hands and brought them up to his own collar, unfastening the first button himself and letting the dwarf do the rest. "How do you smell? I am still conscious only through sheer force of will." He carded his fingers through Freor's fur as he spoke. "You smell like wine and honey. Hayfields in summer, woodsmoke in winter, strawberries in spring. Like The Bellows’ kitchen, and leaves drifting downriver through a mallorn wood. You smell like earth, and sea, and the night sky sparkling with stars, and a hundred thousand breathless nights. You smell like you. And like me."

Freor finished with the buttons and sat staring at his torso, looking a bit pink. "I bet you say that to all the boys."  
"All the ones that are you, yes. Well. Not all, unfortunately."  
He lifted an index finger to the elf's stomach and brushed it against his skin. "I've never seen anyone so… Don't you have any hair at all? Besides on your head?"  
"Not much."  
"It's kinda neat. Weird, but… um…" He trailed off, distracted, pushing the elf's shirt over his shoulders and pulling at his sleeves. "What's mallorn?"  
"The tallest trees in Middle-earth. There are very few left." 

Freor leaned forward and kissed him, running curious hands over his chest, and Legolas pushed up against him involuntarily. He wrapped his arms around the dwarf and leaned back until they lay flat on the bed, Freor's warm weight pressing into him everywhere. He was moving. Freor, bless his Gimli heart, was grinding against him. Legolas stopped thinking and just felt.

After several long, achingly beautiful moments Freor pushed himself up off the elf and asked, "Can we do this naked?" Leif didn't even nod, but Freor immediately felt hands at his belt. After two seconds of unsuccessful tugging at the clasp the elf apparently gave up and just slipped his hand inside the belt and down over his belly and- Yow!

Freor yelped at his touch, but Legolas didn't release him. If he'd been entertaining any fantasies of slowness they were instantly dispelled when the simple sensation of Gimli's heat in his hand nearly put him over the edge by itself. 

Freor held himself up by his arms- spellbound and shuddering at the elf's touch- and they began to tremble. Somewhere deep in the recesses he knew- "I'll fall on you."

Legolas released him and rolled him over on his back. This time he made short work of the belt. And trousers and underthings and anything else that got in the way of total adoration. "Yes. Naked is good."  
Freor undid the elf's fastenings and pulled at his trousers. "You too."  
Legolas removed them in one swift movement and then threw a knee over the dwarf's hips, lowering his body onto Freor's. He tried to stay still for a time, just resting against him, letting him feel… But then Freor was pushing up into him and sucking on his neck and making familiar moaning sounds and in that moment so clearly excited and unafraid and wanting and happy and Gimli that Legolas pushed right back, as slowly as he could manage. And when that was too much, climbed off and took him in his mouth.

Freor expected his brain to melt clean away. Nothing had prepared him for this. The tiny corner that was still verbal thought things like "no idea" and "Legolas!" and "not too young" and through the deafening joy he recalled snatches of dreams, and saw how they paled in comparison, which amazed him since they’d been overwhelming at the time. He pushed his eyes open and looked down to Leif’s mouth engulfing him and eyes flashing up at him and hand holding his own, and the tiny corner thought "Mahal, PLEASE!" and he gasped, and cried out, and soared.

* * *

Slowly Freor became aware that the elf was wrapped around him and stroking his arm. "Am I dead?"  
Leif chuckled and hugged him, hard. He said, "The dead are not so sticky."  
"What's funny?"  
"You- he- asked me that the very first time, two thousand years ago, in exactly that way." Leif kissed his brow. "You just fell asleep."  
"You don't mind?"  
"You couldn’t have done anything more perfect."  
"But we weren't finished."  
Leif drew his lower lip between his teeth and shook his head a very little bit. “Oh, Gimli. D’you mind if I call you Gimli sometimes? There’s nothing wrong with a nap in the middle."  
Freor stretched hugely. “I’d rather you stuck with ‘Freor’, actually. Did you say I smell like the sky?"  
"I’m not above a little hyperbole. ‘Freor’ it is."  
Freor reached for the hand on his arm and held it. "I don't think I can imagine how this must be for you."  
"Probably not, and I doubt I could describe it in a way that makes sense."  
Freor's grin grew. "Oo, tell me the nonsense version."

* * *

_‘Look!’ Leif cried. ‘Gulls! They are flying far inland. A wonder they are to me and a trouble to my heart. Never in all my life had I met them until we came to Pelargir, and there I heard them crying in the air as we rode to the battle of the ships. Then I stood still, forgetting war in Middle-earth; for their wailing voices spoke to me of the Sea. The Sea! Alas! I have not beheld it. But deep in the hearts of all my kindred lies the sea-longing, which it is perilous to stir. Alas! for the gulls. No peace shall I have again under beech or under elm.’_

_‘Say not so!’ said Freor. ‘There are countless things still to see in Middle-earth, and great works to do. But if all the fair folk take to the Havens, it will be a duller world for those who are doomed to stay.’_

_‘Dull and dreary indeed!’ said the boy beside them. ‘You must not go to the Havens, Legolas. There will always be some folk, big or little, and even a few wise dwarves like Gimli, who need you. At least I hope so.’_


	30. I Know You Then, If You Do Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The first dream in this chapter is lifted from Adina's [Kaleidoscope](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9829538), re-told from Freor-Gimli's POV. The progression of names from Freor to Gimli and Leif to Legolas within the dream are closely calibrated and entirely deliberate.
> 
> 2\. "Sarnlazar" is my fake-Sindarin rendering of "lapis lazuli".
> 
> 3\. I decided that- at some point during the 4th Age- Minas Tirith was re-named back to Minas Anor. I have no defensible reason for this decision, it just felt right.

F.A. 2063, mid-August. The Kingdom under the Mountain.

_Freor hung the lantern on the hook and knelt beside the anvil, gesturing Leif to the other side. The rock was dished and polished smooth by generations of knees. “Durin’s anvil,” he said, placing his hands on it palm down. “Brought here from Khazad-dûm itself.” Leif knelt and placed his hands on his side of the anvil. ___

_Freor locked gazes with him. “I am called Gimli, son of Gloin, son of Groin,” he said and then paused and waited for Leif._

_“I am L--” Freor shook his head quickly. Leif stopped, thought, gave a tiny nod. “I am called Legolas, son of Thranduil, son of Oropher.”_

_Freor nodded approval and took a quick breath. “My name is Ogonyok.”_

_Legolas stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open. He looked stricken. “I--” His voice cracked. “My name is Legolas. I have no secret name to give you.”_

_Freor’s initial flash of anger was quickly replaced by shock and despair as he realized that Legolas was not attempting to deny him, but truly had no name to give. He slumped, bowing his head until his forehead rested on the anvil, shoulders shaking as he silently wept._

_“I am sorry,” Legolas whispered, though Freor barely heard him. What he heard instead- or rather felt, as one feels the iron waiting deep inside the earth, or time itself- was Mahal. He could ignore it no more than he could will the blood to cease in his veins. He listened._

_When at last he raised his head his face was streaked with tears, but his dawning hope belied them. “I-- Mahal gives me leave to name you. If you will.”_

_“I would be honored.”_

_Freor took Legolas’s hands and placed them on top of the anvil, higher than they had been, and then covered them with his own. He laughed with joy, and maybe a hint of hysteria. “If you were an infant your mother and I would lay you on the anvil.”_

_He spoke the ancient Khuzdul words, then translated for his love. “By the grace of him whom we call Mahal, he who created us all-” he couldn’t help a small snort of laughter at that, “--all dwarves, at least-- I name you Leskamen.”_

_“Leskamen.” The name sounded different in Legolas’s mouth than it had in Gimli’s own, yet fit in some way he could not name._

_“Leskamen,” Gimli repeated, the name a caress against his tongue. He held up a hand. “The air will grow stale if we do not move apace. If you were a dwarf-lad I would bring you back here when you were forty and remind you of your name.” He chuckled. “I will spare you the wise words on adulthood’s responsibility that my parents gave me, but I must warn you: guard your name well. Do not speak it-- or mine!-- outside an anvil-room such as this. Our names-- our true names-- guard us against subordination to another’s will, but only while they remain secret. If known they are a great danger.”_

_“I understand.” Legolas moved his hands back to their original position on the anvil. “I am called Legolas, son of Thranduil, son of Oropher.”_

_“I am called Gimli, son of Gloin, son of Groin!”_

_“My name is Leskamen.”_

_“My name is Ogonyok! You are known to me, Leskamen. By this name I will ever find you, in this world and the next.”_

_“You are known to me, Ogonyok. I will-- By this name I will ever find you, in this world and the next.”_

_Gimli stood, pushing himself off the ground with his hands against the anvil. “It is done,” he said, smiling down at Legolas and offering his hand. “None may deny our union now, and-- His smile cracked, “...and we cannot be parted, not forever. Sooner or later even an elf--” His voice cracked as well,_ waking him, and Legolas swiftly folded him into his arms.

Freor drew away as the elf began to fade. “I do not fear my own death,” he said quietly. “Only leaving you. Dwarves believe that in Mandos all bear their true names openly, leaving their use-names behind. Only if one knows another’s true name can one be assured of finding that other.”

Leif’s watercolor eyes dissolved once again before Freor’s bedroom ceiling, though his voice echoed a moment longer. “And even an elf shall die at last.”

Freor stared. _Gimli._ In the dream he was Gimli, and Legolas… But he didn’t remember it. It wasn’t him. His name Ogonyok seemed somehow to link him to Leif, and Gimli to Legolas, and everybody to God, but it didn’t link Freor to Gimli. He lay in bed for some time, a bit stunned, breathing and musing.

  


He glanced at the clock and was relieved to discover he hadn’t overslept. He was very glad to be returning to work at The Bellows. He could only manage part-time for now (and short shifts), but it was something familiar and stable in a life that had otherwise gone clear off the rails. That’s not to say he wasn’t happy, though. Far from it, despite the fact that the dreams hadn’t stopped, or even slowed. Not many of them were nightmares anymore so he wasn’t afraid to go to sleep, but they woke him before he was ready, which meant he was tired most of the time, which meant more falling asleep and subsequently more dreaming. And they felt so real. He’d moved back home from the sleep clinic once he and Heid and Sindri had decided as a family that Dr. Ross and her crew, through no fault of their own, couldn’t really do anything to help him. At home he was, at least, comfortable and surrounded by loved ones. Officially Leif still lived in Dale and Freor lived in the Kingdom, but on one otherwise ordinary morning in July, he’d brought Leif home to Granite Street, and Heid and Sindri took one look and welcomed- with a little bemusement- their new son and brother into their home. They took it as a matter of course that their newly-wed Freor wouldn’t be much good company for the next month or so, and expressed no surprise (and indeed felt none) that he slept in Dale more often now than at home.

Leif, to Freor’s great relief, had been right: It had taken several conversations between her and her son-in-law, but once Heid was persuaded that he was, in fact, both not a man and very much in love with Freor, she relaxed. She wasn’t happy about the fact that she’d known him for years under false pretenses, but she also understood why Leif had considered them necessary, and figured that he was probably right, after all.

* * *

_Dori looked down at the dish before him on the dining table. There were three fresh, shiny, sweet bean dumplings on it, speckled with toasted sesame seeds, and from the center of each sprouted a wax candle on a toothpick. He heard the scrape and fizz of a striking match, and then Leif lit each candle in turn- first the number 1 in the left-most dumpling, then the 9 in the middle, and then the 4 on the right. Dombur was smiling at Freor with all his teeth, the light from the fireplace glinting off his tumble of bright white hair. It was late. All the other party guests had gone home. The dumplings were for the three of them alone. Dombur had baked them himself, from Olle Larsson’s old recipe. It wasn’t just Dori’s birthday, and not even just Dori and Leif's anniversary. Green had walked into his library a century ago today, and Dombur was delighted to have been there when they met, even though they’d hardly marked the occasion at the time. Of the three of them, only Leif had guessed that today might someday be a holiday. He didn’t admit it until years later- after Dori had fallen for him- but Leif maintained that it had been love at first sight, and he’d just persevered in sticking around, waiting for Dori to notice him. They’d sung Happy Birthday over the cake hours ago, and What the World Needs Now over the anniversary champagne when all their friends were still dancing around the house, so all Dori did before blowing out his 194 candles was squeeze the hands of his two favorite people in the world and say “Thank you. I love you.” The dumplings were exquisite, the coffee sweet and smoky, and the blowing snow outside just made their warm parlor all the cozier. Presently Dombur hugged and kissed them both and said “G’night, boys,” and headed slowly down the stairs to the guest room, since it was far too dark and cold and snowy for a little old dwarf with a snootful to be walking home._

_Dori lay on their bed, propped up against pillows. His back and left hip were aching again, but he barely noticed, since Leif was taking his time undressing. The wool shirt he hung back up in the closet, followed by his trousers. The cotton vest he tossed in the hamper, then the left sock, then the right. Then underpants. It used to bother Dori- years ago- this marked difference in their bodies. Leif remained as effortlessly strong and smooth and beautiful as he’d been the day Dori had first seen him undress. And Dori didn’t. It wasn’t that he felt any shame or embarrassment at his body aging, it was just that he was aware of the need for them both to adjust to the dwarf’s physical changes, but never the elf’s. Because he was an elf. The only one in the world. And he loved a dwarf. How bizarre was that? It still amazed him. But he’d grown accustomed to the difference over the years and it no longer worried him. What set his heart on edge these days was the knowledge that Leif would live on indefinitely after he died. That hadn’t seemed even remotely possible- let alone real- when they were first dating, but now that Dori was getting on in years- and Leif very much wasn’t- it was beginning, a little at a time, to break his heart. He tried to console himself with the knowledge that Leif believed that Dori was the reincarnation of his dead husband from centuries before, and claimed he had no doubt it would happen again, but really? Dori knew it didn’t matter if reincarnation were real, just as long as Leif’s belief kept him from despair; but the elf’s defense of his unshakable faith in the matter was a little too dogged. Leif never admitted it, but Dori knew fear lurked under the surface, possibly unacknowledged, but more likely just unspoken. And then Leif was standing beside their bed, gazing down at him, stroking himself slowly with one hand, and Dori set his anxieties aside. He said- surprised at himself for choosing this moment to do so- “I got you an anniversary present.”_

_Leif continued to stroke. “And you’re only mentioning it now? I could not have lost the self-control olympics any more soundly.”_  
_Dori watched him, rapt. “Well-” he coughed. “Maybe I wanted to catch you in the right mood.”_  
_“I am very much intrigued by a gift for which_ this _is the right mood.”_  
_“Oh. Oops. Too much build up. I’m afraid it’s not a very sexy gift. Do you want it now?”_  
_Leif’s eyes slipped shut as he increased his speed. “If I say ‘no’ and it’s a blow job I’ll be sorely disappointed.”_  
_“It’s not a blow job. And don’t come on it; you’ll ruin it.”_  
_Leif doubled over on the bed laughing, then cuddled up to his dwarf. “Okay, fine, you incorrigible tease, gimme my present. But only if I can give you yours at the same time.”_  
_“Fair enough.”_

_Dori twisted around, slid open the door of the little cabinet in the bedstead, and pulled out the package he’d wrapped in white paper the day before. Leif left the bed, retrieved a small box from his sock drawer, and returned. They faced one another, sitting up. Leif laid the box on Dori’s thigh, and Dori the package on Leif’s knee. Leif said, “You first.”_  
_Dori nodded. It was a ring box, covered in black velvet. He grinned and popped it open. Inside was a mithril ring set with a bright blue stone shot through with iridescent veins. It was a simple rectangle, spare and elegant. “Oh, Leif. It’s beautiful.” The elf grinned and squeezed the dwarf’s knee. “What’s the stone?”_  
_“Sarnlazar.”_  
_“Oh, right. From Khand or someplace. I read something about it once.”_  
_“Lazvard, east of the Sea of Rhun. I’ve had it for a long time.”_  
_“Oh? How long?” Dori stroked the elf’s forearm softly._  
_“Long before I moved to Drinsburg.”_  
_Dori slipped it on the small finger of his right hand. It fit. “Really? I’ve never seen it before. I’d’ve remembered. Let me guess- you got it in Lazvard a thousand years ago and have been waiting all this time for the perfect occasion.”_  
_“No, this came from a jeweler’s in Minas Anor. But the second part was about right.”_  
_Dori leaned forward and kissed him a long moment. “Thank you. I love it. I’ll never take it off and all that.” Then he picked up the unopened package on Leif’s knee and placed it in his hands, grinning. “Your turn.”_  
_Leif slipped a finger under the flap of paper and pried it open. He stared, mouth falling open. “Dori… “_  
_“Your copy is so well-loved it’s falling apart. Even the print is fading. I thought a fresh one might be nice.”_

_Leif stared at the book’s cover, tracing fingers gently over it. He swallowed. “Where did you find this? I can’t imagine anywhere in Drinsburg had an untranslated edition.”_  
_“I sent away for it. Wrote some letters. Dombur helped- he has librarian connections. A classics professor at U.D. found it for me.” He watched Leif open it to the middle and caress a page. “She must have wondered why some redneck in the hinterlands wanted one in just the original, but she didn’t ask and I didn’t tell.”_  
_Leif gripped his hand. “My love…” The corners of his eyes glinted. “...I can’t tell you what this means to me.”_  
_“You like it?”_  
_The elf nodded, his eyes and mind already deep inside the book. “I love it. It’s perfect. I’ll never take it off, and all that. Shall I read you something?”_  
_“Sure.”_

_Leif almost never spoke elvish, at least not where Dori could hear it. He said there didn’t seem much point, since he was the only person in town to whom it meant anything. But now and then in moments of passion a few words slipped out, so all of Dori’s associations with the language were happy ones. And now a gentle, liquid cascade of syllables flowed from his lover’s mouth like butterflies on a summer breeze. Dori lay back against the pillows and listened._

_After Leif finished, he set the book on the nightstand and lay down beside him, an arm around his middle._  
_“What does it mean?”_  
_Leif chewed the inside of his lip. “It means… Hm. My friend Arwen wrote it about her husband during a time when they were apart. It means: ‘I miss you. The silence grows and you feel very far away. But still I love you, and every night the memory of you comforts me, and the blue stone in your ring shines ever brighter.'"_  
_Dori blinked. “Really? I mean, literally?”_  
_“Well, I condensed the first half quite a bit- I’ve never been much of a translator- but not the part about the ring. Literally it’s something like ‘The blue stone set in the tryst-ring has but worn more bright.’”_  
_Dori thought about that, holding his elf. “Did you…” He held up his right hand to indicate his gift. “Is this your friend’s ring?”_  
_Leif squeezed him and chuckled. “No, but that poem is part of the reason why I- and now you- have a sarnlazar ring. And you were wrong, by the way.” Leif slid his hand slowly down over Dori’s belly. “That’s one of the sexiest gifts you could possibly give me.”_


	31. As I To You, So You To Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream is lifted from Return of the King. Obviously.

F.A. 2063, late August. Dale.

_And there stood Gimli the dwarf left all alone. His knees shook and he was wroth with himself. ‘Here is a thing unheard of!’ he said. ‘An elf will go underground and a dwarf dare not!’ With that he plunged in. But it seemed to him that he dragged his feet like lead over the threshold; and at once a blindness came upon him, even upon Gimli Gloin’s son who had walked unafraid in many deep places of the world._

_He could see nothing but the dim flame of the torches; but if the company halted, there seemed an endless whisper of voices all about him, a murmur of words in no tongue that he had ever heard before. Nothing assailed the company nor withstood their passage, and yet steadily fear grew on the dwarf as he went on: most of all because he knew now that there could be no turning back; all the paths behind were thronged by an unseen host that followed in the dark._

_So time unreckoned passed, until Gimli saw a sight that he was ever afterwards loth to recall. Before Aragorn were the bones of a mighty man. He had been clad in mail, and still his harness lay there whole; for the cavern’s air was dry as dust, and his hauberk was gilded. He had fallen near the far wall of the cave, as now could be seen, and before him stood a stony door closed fast: his finger-bones were still clawing at the cracks. A notched and broken sword lay by him, as if he had hewn at the rock in his last despair._

_Of the time that followed, one hour or many, Gimli remembered little. The others pressed on but he was ever hindmost, pursued by a groping horror that seemed always just about to seize him; and a rumour came after him like the shadow-sound of many feet. He stumbled on, until he was crawling like a beast on the ground and felt that he could endure no more. He_ woke gasping for breath, ghostly fingers clawing at him, squeezing his throat. He cried out in terror and the sound shook him, and startled Legolas awake.

The elf’s voice filtered through the dark, calm and insistent. “It’s not real, Freor; you’re dreaming. Wake up. It can’t hurt you. You’re safe. I’m here. Wake up." Freor realized he was sitting up in bed, thrashing against Legolas’s hands on his shoulders. He calmed, breath slowing but still hard. He reached up and covered the elf’s right hand with his own. “Leif.” The elf slid his left down to the middle of the dwarf’s back and rubbed. Freor let out an explosive breath, shaking his head. “Hell. I thought I was done with those.”  
Legolas pulled him close. “I’m sorry.” Freor nodded and kissed his hand. “I’ve never understood why he makes it so hard on you. I’m the one who asked for this, not Gimli.”

Freor lay back down in their bed, pulling the elf with him. Legolas settled into his arms, surprised at how quickly the dwarf had relaxed. When he spoke again it was low and soft. He sounded sleepy. “Paths of the Dead. Like it was yesterday. Or two minutes ago.” Legolas held him tighter. “It’s better though, for knowing what happened after. Not Morthond or Erech, mind you, but later. Didn’t know that while I was dreaming it, though. I’d forgotten how awful that was.” He yawned, and the movement made his beard tickle the elf’s nose. Legolas waited. Freor apparently hadn’t noticed what he’d said, or didn’t understand what it meant. “They’ll stop eventually, right?”

Legolas drew his fingers through the fur on the dwarf's belly. “Oh yes. Sooner rather than later, I think.” Freor was asleep again.

* * *

“You said something yesterday that I keep thinking about.”  
“Oh?”  
“You said, ‘I’ve never understood why he makes it so hard on you. I’m the one who asked for this, not Gimli.’”  
“Oh. I know how that sounds, but I met him, remember. It might all be just as unintentional and random as the weather, but it might not.”  
“No, that’s not what I mean. You really don’t know why it starts with the bad dreams, and the good come later? Well, mostly?”  
“No, apart from ‘Always tell the bad news first,’ I suppose.”  
“Because I think maybe I do.” Leif shook his head, eyes questioning. “Did you ever meet an incarnation who had already remembered you? I mean, one for whom the dreams- or any memory of you or his former lives- had started before he met you?"  
“No.”  
“Didn’t think so.”  
“Meaning?”  
“Because… See, I think you’ve got it back-to-front. You’ve been thinking all this time that Mahal did it for you. You made your request and he granted it: He gave you Gimli’s perpetual rebirth so that you could be with him again, and again and again as long as his soul in Mandos was willing.”  
“Well... yes.”  
Freor shook his head. “Backwards. Mahal made you an honorary dwarf because Gimli wanted to marry you and couldn’t do it without your name. This Life of Durin thing- being reborn? He could give that to any dwarf. Every dwarf. And who’s to say he hasn’t? Who’s to say every one of us isn’t reborn every time? But they- meaning every dwarf in the world who isn’t me- will never know it. Gimli’s the only one who will ever know. You see? His rebirth is meaningless without you. Mahal gave _you_ to Gimli. First he gave Gimli a way to marry you, and second… until the end of the world. And this is where the dreams come in: All the bad visions are bad, right? But all the good visions... are you. I mean the bad are _just_ bad, but the good are good specifically because they’re about you and Gimli together. It’s as if Mahal were saying to me: ‘Pay attention, child--’ and here Freor extended his left hand, palm up, ‘This is a life. Now understand--” and then his right, the same way, ‘This is a life with Legolas in it.’” Legolas stared at him, mouth open. Freor dropped his hands and slid them into Leif’s. “Reincarnation isn’t the gift. You are.”

“That’s… extremely flattering, but I’m not convinced it explains the bad dreams. I think you’d be able to appreciate how fantastic I am even without them. And it’s still you paying the price for my request.”  
“Not a price, just a… demonstration. Or maybe it is a price, but I don’t blame you for it. Or maybe this is the price a dwarf pays for choosing an elf.”  
“It’s been two-and-a-half millennia. I’d expect the valar to have grown used to the idea by now. Besides, Mahal gave me a name. He adopted me, essentially. I became one of his children.”  
“For love of me, not necessarily you.”  
“All the more reason for him to spare you the nightmares.”  
“All the more reason for me to be the one to pay a price.”  
“But you didn’t ask for anything. Giving you a gift and then charging you for it isn’t a gift, it’s extortion.”  
“To what purpose? What’s he extorting from me? What benefit does he get from my bad dreams?”

Legolas made a face. He snorted. "You know, I’ve changed my mind. Gifts and prices are clearly an unproductive metaphor for thinking about this.”  
Freor chuckled. “Yeah, now it’s just getting silly. I don’t suppose we can go back and ask him, can we?”  
“No. The way is lost.”  
“Heck, for all we know he doesn’t even know about it. Maybe it’s Varda messing with you for choosing a dwarf.”  
“And giving you the bad dreams?”  
“Because you have to watch me suffer, which makes you feel guilty and sad.”  
“The valar are racist assholes.”  
“HA! The valar are ineffable.”  
“Call it what you like.”


	32. A Deeper Way

F.A. 2063, September 16th. Dale.

“Legolaaas, it’s after nine, why didn’t you wake me?” Freor’s voice wafted down the hall and into the kitchen where the elf stood in his dressing gown, grating a potato at the counter. “Some of us can’t live on moonbeams, you know.” Freor appeared in the kitchen doorway and looked the elf up and down perfunctorily. “Why aren’t you dressed? The meat won’t hunt itself. We’ve got to get more in the smoker before the snow comes.”

Legolas realized with a jolt that Freor wasn’t using his usual northeast brogue, but rather the flat vowels and slightly lisping sibilants of Rohan. In the sixteenth century. His heart sped up. “Have you looked in the mirror this morning?”  
“No, why? Is there something on my face?”  
The elf’s jaw worked silently for a moment. He whispered, “Nar?”  
Freor snorted. “If you like. Where did you stash my skinning knife? I can’t find it.”  
His voice quavered. “Gimli?”  
Freor’s expression flashed from annoyance to concern. “What’s the matter, Love?”  
Legolas stared at him. “Gimli… you’re _you_?”  
Freor made Nar’s ‘what an odd thought’ face, which Legolas had entirely forgotten. “Well, as much as I ever am, I suppose. Are you all right?”  
Legolas set potato and grater down carefully and breathed deeply, trying to remain calm. “We don’t need to go hunting today, I promise you there’s plenty of food. Sit down.”  
Freor pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat, apparently oblivious that his surroundings were quite different from the ones Nar had known.  
Legolas sat down opposite. “Tell me about when we met.”  
Freor’s brows knit. “D’you mean Theogar’s party? Or Rivendell?”  
Legolas, in his shock, could not speak. He felt tears spill down his cheeks. Freor bolted from his chair and reached for the elf, folding his still-sitting frame in his arms. “Legolas, sweetheart, what is it?” The elf turned his face into the dwarf’s stomach, wrapped both arms around him, and sobbed.

Gimli held his distraught elf, stroking his hair and whispering reassurance. He didn’t share Legolas’s optimistic appraisal of the state of their winter provisions, but it was true that they probably wouldn’t starve if they didn’t catch anything today. Besides, if he managed to get him calmed down and talking about whatever this was, he could likely get him recovered enough to go out hunting this afternoon. He glanced around the kitchen. And then out the kitchen window to the… garden? What? He took the kitchen in again. He blinked and shook his head. Something was wrong.

Gimli stroked the elf’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “Did you just ask me if I’m me?” The elf nodded against his stomach, still crying. “Does that mean I haven’t been me, recently?” Another nod. He was beginning to quiet. Gimli tried to think. What happened last night? Venison roast for supper. Baked apples. A bath together, and bed. Ah, yes, bed together. Just a typical night. And what had he dreamed this morning, before he awoke full of resolve to fill their larder? He shut his eyes. Nothing. He couldn’t remember anything. “Did I do something?” Legolas pulled his face out of the dwarf’s pajamas and wiped his eyes. Gimli was very relieved to see that he was smiling. “Whatever it was, I’m so sorry. I don’t remember. You know what my memory’s like. Better than I do.” Legolas grabbed his collar and pulled him down to his mouth, hard and demanding. When Gimli broke away for breath the elf hissed into his ear, “Just take me to bed. Now.”

Gimli placed his hands on either side of the elf’s head and looked him hard in the eye. “Beloved, you were crying not thirty seconds ago. I will certainly take you to bed if that’s what you want, but will you tell me why you were so upset? And why you don’t seem to be anymore, so suddenly?”  
“Yes, yes, you’ll get it in a minute. I’m not upset- you astonishing, exasperating person- I’m overjoyed.” He stood, took the dwarf’s hand, and led him through the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom. Gimli wondered what they might manage to do there, considering how exhausted they’d both been the night before. Past the threshold he looked around the room and… it was strange. The thought came to him: “But this isn’t… our house.”  
Legolas sat on the bed without releasing his hand. “It isn’t Nar’s house, no.”  
Gimli looked at the unmade bed, the rug, the bureau, the pictures on the wall. Then down into the elf’s face. “Okay, Lover, what’s going on? Why aren’t we in my house? And why didn’t I notice until now?”  
Legolas had unbuttoned the placket at the front of Gimli's pajamas and was carding his fingers through his chest hair. “You should probably brace yourself for a shock. Maybe you should lie down.”  
“Is everything okay, Legolas? You’re scaring me.”  
“Yes, my love. Everything, finally, everything. Is okay.” The elf pulled him forward and attached his mouth to his neck.  
Gimli jumped. “Goodness. The appetite on you these days.” He felt the elf smile against his throat, and then pull him down into the bed beside him. He drew the rumpled bedclothes over them and then gathered Legolas into his arms again. He kissed the elf’s forehead. “Lying down. Spill the beans.”

“We’re not in Nar’s house because Nar has been dead for a long time.”  
“Um… no, I’m right here.”  
“Gimli, you remember what it was like when you first awoke in Nar’s body, right? Confusing, disconnected? The bad dreams and the good ones, and then the who-are-these-other-people-in-my-head thing? Two, three, what?”  
“Sure. Nain and Buri and the others.”  
“Right. Well, I think what’s happening now is that the body you’re currently inhabiting is remembering being Nar. In fact is sort of… stuck. At Nar.”  
“The body I’m _currently_ inhabiting?”  
“I suppose because that was the last time… I’m sorry to admit that I don’t even remember this specific day- the day we woke early and went out hunting. How old are you? Is Nar?”  
“Two hundred and six, why?”  
“It doesn’t really matter, I’d just like to remember who you were then, so I can try to make us a little less out of sync.”

“Ohhhhh, lord.” Gimli sighed hugely. “Okay, yeah. I remember this. I hate this part; it’s so bloody bewildering. I think I’ve been Nar for two hundred years and you’re telling me I was someone else _yesterday_.” Legolas nodded. Gimli blinked. “That’s why you asked if I’d looked in the mirror.” The elf hugged him tighter. “Shlak. We should establish some kind of code or something. A ritual for me to recognize that this is what’s happening to my brain, when it’s happening.” Legolas chuckled. Gimli poked him in the ribs. “Shut up, elf. It’s giving me a headache already.”  
“I’m sorry, it’s just… we have. We already have a code.” Legolas was managing not to actively laugh, but Gimli could hear it in his voice. “It just never works. I keep trying it though.”  
“Well why didn’t you use it this time instead of all this rigmarole?”  
Legolas gave up and laughed again and then pushed himself up and threw a leg over the dwarf’s hips. “I did.” The elf rocked his erection against him, and Gimli felt his own quicken, despite all they had done the night before. Except it apparently hadn’t been the night before, so who knows. “I’ll try it again, shall I?” Gimli found his hands inside the elf’s dressing gown, greedy for his warm skin. Legolas leaned down and whispered into his waiting mouth, “Just take me to bed. Now.”

  


Gimli had set to with all enthusiasm and Legolas had matched him hand for mouth for fire, but paused when he noticed his elf had started crying again. Not violently like before, but tears swam in his eyes and tracked his cheeks. “Legolas?”  
“Don’t stop.”  
He resumed, but at a gentler rhythm. “I haven’t seen you so overwhelmed in a good while. Am I doing something different?”  
The elf let out a breathy laugh- “No”- which ended in a gasp. “You’re doing everything the same and it’s fucking glorious.”  
Gimli chuckled into the elf’s chest and then caught a nipple between his teeth and worried it. Legolas gasped again and his hips bucked, rubbing his erection against the dwarf’s furry belly and dislodging his bite. “Honestly I’m amazed I can, after last night. The things you ask of an old dwarf, I don’t kno- Ah!” Gimli’s eyes fell shut as his orgasm neared.  
“No wait!”  
He stopped moving, jaw clenched, savoring the edge. “What is it?”  
“Your eyes. Please, I need to see your eyes.” Gimli opened them and found Legolas gazing down at him, his own eyes wide and wet. He nodded. “I love you.” Legolas squeezed him, and he willed his eyes open and locked on his love’s as the elf pulled fire up through his penis from base to crown in slow motion. Gimli cried out and went blank, unaware of the state of his eyes, or much of anything apart from the elf’s cry above him, the warm gush at his belly, and his own blinding pleasure.

* * *

“So this house,” Gimli rumbled, “That isn’t mine.”  
Legolas roused himself from a doze. “Hm?”  
“Does it have a bathtub?”  
The elf yawned. “Biggest residential bathtub in Dale. I had it made special. Hoped I’d get you in it with me one day.”  
“You plan ahead.”  
“Gotta do something to fill the down times.”  
“We’re in Dale?”  
He stretched. “The house is yours, just not Nar’s. You moved in with me weeks ago. Come on, let’s go see the tub. I’ll hold your hand while you look in the mirror and then we can take a bath.”  
“Is it that bad?”  
“Hardly. It’s just not what you’re used to.”

They disentangled from one another slowly. The elf pressed lingering kisses into his forehead, cheek, mouth, shoulder, hand, then slipped out of bed and pulled him down the corridor. In the bathroom doorway he said, “Before you look, remember that there’s nothing to fear. We’re both quite safe. And you really can relax about the food situation; there’s more than enough.” Legolas smiled at him, and Gimli stepped in and looked into the mirror.

He stared.

And stared.

“Good lord, Legolas.”  
“Yep.”  
“This is the strangest feeling.”  
“What, specifically?”  
“I don’t recognize him at all.” Gimli raised his hand. The boy in the mirror raised his. He turned it at the wrist. The boy turned his. “How... old is this person?”  
“Forty-two.”  
Gimli’s eyes widened. So did the boy’s. Between them they raised four eyebrows at him. “Child-stealer.”  
“I didn’t steal you. Bizarre that you remember Nain but not Freor.”  
“Who’s Freor?”  
“You’re looking at him. Yesterday and every day for forty-two years you’ve been Freor Frorsson of the Kingdom Under the Mountain. Which you’ll doubtless remember sometime soon.”

Gimli stared some more. “I remember… my life. Being Gimli. The war, you,Tol Eressea. And then… remembering again, the first time. And later. Polo and Ruby and Ivy. And now Nar. I’m Nar. But _that_ -" He pointed at the dwarf in the mirror- "Is not me. It’s not any of the mes I’ve been. I haven’t been this young since long before I met you the _first_ time.”

Legolas squeezed his shoulder and kissed his temple, and then leaned over the bath and turned the taps. He sat on the lip of the tub, testing the stream with his fingers and adjusting the temperature. Soon he was satisfied, and lowered himself slowly into the steaming water. He reached for the dwarf’s hand and tugged him toward the bath. “Join me?”

Gimli finally tore his eyes from the mirror and looked down at the naked elf in the bath, pink and glistening. “Holy… “ He couldn’t finish the thought. He stepped into the tub and sat down. “Clearly my memory’s a bit muddled at the moment but… didn’t we just have sex?”  
Legolas grinned. “I’ll say.”  
“How did we manage that if I’m only forty-two?”  
“You’re something of a prodigy.”  
Gimli gaped at him. “I expected you to say you had no idea, but clearly you do. That wasn’t the first time?!”  
His grin widened. “No.”  
“Gracious. The things you get up to while I’m asleep.” Legolas, shaking his head, turned around beneath the water, slid across the short distance between them and settled against him, leaning his head back against the dwarf’s shoulder. Gimli held him. “What?”  
“I haven’t felt so peaceful in ages, and you’re fretting.”  
“It’s disconcerting, not knowing who I am.”  
“Oh that wasn’t a complaint- I’ve missed the fretting, too. But it’s really not necessary, you can relax. You don’t need to understand it now. Freor will come back to you soon enough and it will all make sense. It is so good to be with you again after so long.”  
“Not as long as usual.”  
The elf’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Much longer.”  
“Oh? This Freor fellow more difficult than most?”  
“Quite the opposite.”  
“What, then?”  
“It’s twenty-sixty-three.”  
“What is?”  
“The year.” Legolas remained silent for several moments before continuing. “I’m having trouble believing this is real. I’ve had so many dreams like this.”  
The elf's torso stirred the water as the dwarf’s chest expanded with breath behind him.

“Oh god. Two. In a row.”

“Two in a row.”

Gimli’s whisper matched the elf’s. “Oh my love. I can’t…” He gripped him tightly. “I’m so sorry. I don’t remember.”

“I know. It’s all right, we can talk about it later. Just be with me now.”


	33. Stronger in Their Melding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream is lifted from Fellowship of the Ring.

F.A. 2063, September 17th. Dale.

_‘Nay!’ said Legolas. ‘Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed Gimli son of Gloin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not yet forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlorien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.’_

_‘Maybe,’ said Gimli; ‘And I thank you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zaram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them, memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream.’_ Gimli’s eyes drifted open to soft morning sun slanting in the window, glancing off the lapping river and the bow of the trim, grey boat of the Galadhrim. Legolas was behind him.

  


Freor-Gimli lay awake beside his sleeping elf in their bed for a long time. Nar had lived another thirty-four years after that day they went hunting. His end was hazier than some of the earlier ones, but Legolas had been there- he remembered that. And then there was Dori. Dori was faint indeed. Like a dream inside of a dream; like Freor dreaming Nain dreaming Gimli, only there was a lot less of it and much confused. Dori had never Remembered, and Gimli, searching for him now, long dead and buried, found those few things that Freor had dreamed- Dombur, the library, a grand birthday party with a bluestone ring and an elvish book and a Leif who loved him- and not much else. In fact there was nothing at all between Dori’s 194th birthday and Tholl’s 40th, when his mother and father took him to the anvil and reminded him of his name.

And then there was Tholl.

Gimli shifted his weight and rolled over, reveling for a moment in how young and strong and ache-free he felt. Legolas lay on his side, facing him, eyes slightly open, still asleep.

Gimli had no idea how he felt. There was too much. He remembered the day at the fair when Freor was sixteen, and this time saw it through Legolas’s eyes. He remembered Fror, and wept for him silently, and for Heid, whom he resolved to go visit later that day and bring her all her favorite treats. He remembered the moment when Freor understood that Legolas thought Freor was Gimli, and he saw that through the elf’s eyes too, and chuckled. And he remembered what Legolas had said to him before he moved away to Drinsburg, right here- on the porch just outside- a year ago: "You get to choose your future, and keep choosing it every day, and nothing you did yesterday or a year ago or twenty years ago needs to dictate what you do today or tomorrow or twenty years hence. You and your wants and dreams will grow and change over time, and nothing is necessarily permanent. You’re free."

Gimli reached out and touched the elf’s cheek. Legolas breathed in and shut his eyes fully, then extended all his long limbs in a stretch. “Mm. Mornin’.”  
The dwarf whispered, “Sweetpea.”  
Legolas stilled, then opened his eyes.  
“I don’t know what to say first.”  
“Gimli?”  
He nodded. “And Freor. And Tholl, however much I’d like to disown him. But if Freor is me then Tholl was me, too.”

Legolas inhaled sharply- instantly wide awake- grabbed the dwarf’s face in both hands and smashed their mouths together. And then he was crying again and covering Freor’s face with kisses saying “GimliGimliGimliGimli” until the dwarf couldn’t help chuckling. “Well hi there. It’s good to see you, too.” Legolas stared at him, breathing hard, eyes wide, apparently stunned silent. “What a mess, eh? I’m sorry about that whole Tholl thing.”  
Legolas shook his head. “You don’t… it’s okay. He was a good person.”  
“He was an idiot.” Gimli pulled the elf’s head down to his breast and cradled him. “I suppose you forgave him ages ago, but it’s still fresh for me. Before you woke up I lay here trying to understand how it could mean so little to me that you were in enough pain to leave the Iron Hills for years. I don’t even know how long you were gone, much less where. And how I could grieve for Egil and watch you do the same, and not care. Barely pity. The part of me that was connected to you had just… shut down. It's not even guilty I feel so much as helpless. I swear to you now that I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that Freor lives as long as dwarfly possible."

Legolas buried his face in Gimli’s neck, wrapping both arms around him. “Thank you. Thank you- it was a bit rough, actually.”  
“And I got it wrong, just now. What I should have said first is that I love you, Legolas. I haven’t said it nearly enough recently. I love you. And I’m sorry.”  
“I love you, and you’re right: of course I forgave you ages ago. But talking about it would do me good. And there are things you need to know.”

* * *

They sat across from one another at the kitchen table, leftover eggs cooling on the stovetop, cups of tea warming their hands. “I told Freor that I wanted to wait and have this conversation with Gimli, when you woke up.”  
“And I said ‘No, tell me now’, and you did.”  
“Yes, but I didn’t tell you anything you couldn’t have remembered for yourself. There’s more.” He raised his teacup and drank. The dwarf waited patiently. “I was gone for forty years, since you mention it.”  
Gimli’s eyebrows rose. “Forty. Good lord. Where?”  
“Everywhere. I was… of two minds. Torn between the impossible, heartbreaking conviction that Tholl was you, and the tortured hope that maybe I’d gotten it wrong for once, and the real you was somewhere out there in the world. Alone. So I left, and went looking again, all over Middle-earth. I went back to Drinsburg and searched among the descendents of Dori’s relatives, and everybody else, too. All the old dwarf halls. Here in the Kingdom, Aglarond, Khazad-dum, the Blue Mountains... I even spent years down in Gondor. I did all my same old rituals, only this time it was with the older, unmarried dwarves rather than the young. I sojourned among the middle-aged, and later the elders. I asked people if they’d ever heard the fairy tale about Longseeker. I asked what they knew of ancient history: The War of the Ring, the Nine, the legendary friendship of one dwarf with one elf, of the elves who all passed over sea long ago. Had I met anyone I thought might have been you, I’d have dropped the shield immediately and shown my real face. I’d have dared embrace him on the briefest of introductions. I’d have spoken my true name aloud, in the hope of unprecedented sudden Memory. But it never happened. And when I returned to the Hills and went to see Tholl, your unmistakable, unseeing eyes peered out at me again. Still blind. And I found myself wishing for his death.

“That was when I barged into your house and kissed you, incidentally. And after that I left again. I wasn’t searching anymore; there was no point. Just… wandering.”

Gimli reached across the table and took his hand. “Let’s have the rest of this conversation somewhere I can touch you. Sofa?” Legolas nodded.

  


"Okay. You left again, but I know you were there when I died. The last month is hazy, but I’m sure you were there."  
“Yes.” He seemed reluctant to continue.  
“Was that… better? With Tholl dead you could start looking again. For a me who would Remember.”  
“At first. I did the usual baby-check in the Iron Hills.” The elf had gone limp in his arms. “And I went west to Drinsburg again, but after that I couldn’t seem to focus.” Gimli held him, stroking his shoulders, back, hair, everything accessible. “I just… rambled. My mind sorta shut down. I fuzzed out a lot. Sometimes I’d look around me and realize I didn’t know where I was or how I got there, or how much time had passed since the last place I could remember. That happened several times. The last one… I woke up in Lothlorien.” Gimli stiffened. Legolas didn’t seem to notice. “It felt like a good place to stop. I sat down on the grass.” The elf's ear was soft against his cheek. “I thought you were gone.” Leif's hair smelled of late summer sun and all they had done the night before. “Then I realized I was lying down in the grass, watching the clouds drift above me.” Gimli rocked him, pressing his hands to the elf's heart. “I seemed… to be done. I gave over to the dreaming.” Gimli kissed his temple and cheek and throat and chin, tears spilling into his beard. “And I honestly don’t know how I got from there to here. I didn’t make that choice. Not that I remember anyway. I just… woke up, one day. I came back to myself while walking beside the Running, south of Long Lake. When I reached Dale the Spring Festival was on so I thought I might as well hang around for a bit. And there you were.” The elf took a long, slow breath. “And then I understood that when Tholl died, Mandos gave you the choice, again. And you chose to come back, and try, with me, again. And I’d given up. I’d left you alone.”

Gimli shook his head. “No. You thought I was already gone.”  
“Yes, I did. What does that say about me? And what I thought of you, at the time?”  
"And suffered therefore twice over. At the time I didn't know or care about either one, but you had to cope first with the conviction that I’d checked out, and then with the guilt of doing so yourself before you discovered I hadn’t. You’ve been punishing yourself for it all of Freor’s life, haven’t you?”  
“I actually thought that after Tholl, you chose to stay dead. That in Mandos you… I don’t even know. I almost can’t remember now- or understand, anyway- how… bleak… I felt. Do you remember Mandos, this time? What he said to you? What you remember of life when you’re there and... how it feels? How you decide?”

Gimil could not touch him enough. He knew he could barely begin to fathom how the grinding, relentless pain of centuries of loneliness and loss had changed Legolas. Now that Gimli was back, the elf wanted the dwarf's help to understand it. To give it… meaning. Somehow. To reassure him that it wasn’t just a senseless, random waste of time. That somehow all that pain had been _for_ something. Had been worth it. He also knew that a morning, a day, a month, a year of soothing wouldn’t heal all those wounds. Clearly Legolas was far better than he had been forty-three years ago, but he might never again be quite who he was before. Gimli was prepared to make the rest of Freor’s life worth everything Legolas had endured to get to it. “No. This time was no different from the others. When Tholl was old I was sleepy all the time. One afternoon I lay down for a nap and the next thing I remember is playing eagle with Fror.” He took the elf's hand, resting two fingers at the soft inside of his wrist where he could feel the slow pulse through his skin. "Have you had anyone you could share this pain with, while I was away?"

Legolas said nothing. He remained very, very still, and Gimli guided his head down to rest on his shoulder. The elf felt boneless and empty, too tired and aching to muster anything at all.  
"My love, even if… Even if nothing else of the past three years had happened, you came back to me the very day I needed you most- at Dad’s funeral- looking like a god out of the elder days and radiating love at me. For that alone I lay my heart at your feet, and would do now, today and every day, even if you’d managed to stay away until I was sixty. Which I’m very glad you didn’t, by the way.”  
"I gave up, Gimli."  
"Did you? Then how are we here now? The lying down to die didn’t work, clearly. Even then you changed your mind. Don't you see? Nothing can kill this. No matter what I have done, or what you have done,... here we are. I lost the part of me that cared about you. It was gone. And you gave up, Legolas. You gave up! And yet _still_ we are together.”

Finally the elf turned and looked up at him. Gimli poked his shoulder gently, saying, "Mahal chose my wedding gift well. We're together now by _your_ grace. I wish for once I could Remember right away and come looking for you instead of the other way around. Save you the trouble of trudging all over the bloody continent. I'd set out the day I learned to walk. Imagine that, eh? You sitting moping in the ruins of Elrond's study when a baby dwarf walks up and climbs into your lap."

Legolas blinked up at him. "I have imagined that. Many times."  
“Look, I know you’ve been carrying this guilt around for decades, but… I don’t think there’s even anything to forgive but I certainly do. I know all of it now- do I know all of it now?- and I still can’t imagine any other way forward with you than an unqualified ‘Yes’. Did you somehow fail to notice what our lives have been for the past two months? _WE_... are okay. Or will be, with some time. Which we have.”

Legolas scratched at Gimli's beard with a thumbnail, the beginnings of a smile curling the the corner of his mouth. “Yes, that's all of it. Except… I don’t think I understood until now just how much of a weight it was. Every time I saw you, every time I talked to Freor it was there, digging at me. And I couldn’t tell you. I hate that. Not being able to tell you about _you_. And me.”

Gimli kissed him yet again. "I know. And maybe now we can relieve some of that. Tell me everything you ever wanted to. I hope you never stop.”

Finally, the smile spread over the elf’s whole face, and he said, “We have time, and one another, and the whole world to play in.”

Gimli grinned wide, nodding. “Yeah. What should we do first?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Freor's timeline](https://1drv.ms/w/s!AkGCJevfLkuLdqBoSC9FiIIdUGM)   
>  [Gimli's timeline](https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkGCJevfLkuLfANQ7wRijM9JEjM)


End file.
